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THE 

STORY OF CARTHAGE 



ALFRED J^^HURCH, M.A. 

professor of latin in university college.. london, authop of 
"stories from homer," etc. etc. 



H'/TI/ THE COLLABORATION OF 

ARTHUR OILMAN, M.A. 

author of "the story of ROME," "history of the AMERICAN 

people," etc. etc. 




NEW YORK & LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 






Copyright 

By G. p. Putnam's Sons 

1886 

E^itered at Stationers' Hall, London 

By T. Fisher Unwin 



04 



n'ln 






PREFACE. 



It is difficult to tell the story of Carthage, because 
one has to tell it without sympathy, and from the 
standpoint of her enemies. It is a great advantage, 
on the other hand, that the materials are of a manage- 
able amount, and that a fairly complete narrative may 
be given within a moderate compass. 

I have made it a rule to go to the original authori- 
ties. At the same time I have to express my obliga- 
tions to several modern works, to the geographical 
treatises of Heeren, the histories of Grote, Arnold and 
Mommsen, Mr. Bosworth Smith's admirable " Car- 
thage and the Carthaginians," and the learned and 
exhaustive " History of Art in Phoenicia and its 
Dependencies," by Messieurs Georges Perrot and 
Charles Chipiez, as translated and edited by Mr. 
Walter Armstrong. To this last I am indebted for 
most of the illustrations of this book. 

I have had much help also from Mr. W. W. Capes' 
edition of " Livy " xxi., xxii. 



X PREFACE. 

I have not thought it necessary to discuss the 
critical questions which have been raised about the 
Duilian column (p. 135). The inscription, as it at 
present exists, may be supposed to bear a general, 
though not a faithful, resemblance to the original. 

A. C. 

Hadley Green, 

May 27. 1886. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B.C. 

Carthage founded by Dido ....... 850 

The Campaigns of Malchus 550 

The Battle of Alalia 536 

First Treaty with Rome ........ 509 

First Battle of Himera 480 

Second Treaty with Rome ....... 440 

Hannibal invades Sicily ........ 410 

Third Treaty with Rome ....... 405 

Capture of Agrigentum ........ 406 

Treaty between Carthage and Dionysius .... 405 

Renewal of the War ......... 397 

Siege of Syracuse by Himilco . , ... . . . 396 

Return of Himilco to Africa ....... 396 

Mago invades Sicily ........ 393 

Treaty of Peace with Dionysius ...... 392 

Renewal of the War 383 

Dionysius attacks Carthage ....... 368 

Death of Dionysius . , ' . . . . . . 367 

The Conspiracy of Hanno ....... 340 

The Battle of Crimessus ........ 339 

Death of Timoleon ......... 337 

Agathocles defeated at Himera ...... 310 

He transfers the W^ar to Africa . . . . . . .310 

He returns to Sicily ........ 307 

Pyrrhus invades Sicily ........ 278 

He leaves Sicily ......... 276 

Beginning of First Punic War ....... 264 

Defeat of the Carthaginian Fleet by Duilius at Mylae . . 260 

Victory of Regulus at Ecnomus ....... 256 



Xll 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



Landing of Regulus in Africa 256 

Defeat of Regulus by Xantippus . ..... 255 

The Siege of Lilybseum begun ...... 249 

Defeat of the Roman Fleet under Claudius at Drepanum . . 249 

Hamilcar Barca comes into Sicily . . . • . . . 247 

Death of Hannibal ......... 247 

Defeat of Carthaginian Fleet by Catulus at ^gusa . . . 241 

Conclusion of First Punic War ....... 241 

War of the Mercenaries . . .... 241-236 

Hamilcar Barca invades Spain ....... 236 

Death of Hamilcar 229 ' 

Assassination of Hasdrubal . . . . . . .221 

Capture of Saguntum by Hannibal and Commencement of Second 

Punic War . . . . . . . . . 218 

Battles of Ticinus and Trebia .218 

Battle of Trasumennus . . . . , . . . 217 

Battle of Cannae ......... 216 

Hannibal winters in Capua . . . . . . . 215 

Roman Conquest of Syracuse ....... 212 

Hannibal takes Tarentum . . . . . . . 212 

Defeat and Death of the Scipios in Spain . . . . .211 

Hannibal marches on Rome — Fall of Capua . . . . 211 

Publius Scipio goes to Spain ....... 210 

He captures New Carthage . . . . . . . 209 

Death of Marcellus 208 

Hasdrubal enters Italy ........ 207 

His defeat at Metaurus . . . . . . . . 207 

Scipio sails to Africa ........ 204 

Hannibal returns to Carthage ....... 203 

Defeat at Zama ......... 202 

End of Second Punic War ....... 201 

Death of Hannibal 183 

Roman Embassy at Carthage . . . . . • I74 

The Third Punic War begins ...... 149 

Fall of Carthage 146 



(\ 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
LEGEND AND EARLY HISTORY. 

I. 

The Legend of Dido 

The building of Carthage, 5 — Dido and ^neas, 7. 



3-8 



II. 

The Growth of Carthage 



9-1; 



The Tyrian traders, li — Malchus and Mago, 13 — Treaties 
with Rome, 15 — Carthaginian possessions, 17. 



PART II. 



CARTHAGE AND GREECE. 



I. 



Hamh.car and Hannibal 



21-34 

Hamilcar's army, 25 — The fate of Hamilcar, 27— Hannibal 
before Selinus, 29 — Attack on Himera, 31 — Hannibal's venge- 
ance, 33. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
II. 

Carthage and Dionysius (406-405) . . 35-45 

Siege of Agrigentum, 37 — Execution of the generals, 39 — 
Agrigentum evacuated, 4i-"Gela abandoned, 43 — Tiie plague 
at Carthage, 45. 

III. 

Carthage and Dionysius (397) . . . 46-63 

Siege of Motya, 47 — Motya assaulted, 49— Himilco's ad- 
vance, 51 — Battle of Catana, 53 — Siege of Syracuse, 55 — 
Plague in Himilco's camp, 57 — Himilco's escape, 59 — 
Carthage saved, 63. 

IV. 

The Last Struggle with Dionysius . . 64-69 

Mago defeated, 65 — Defeat of Dionysius, 67— The end of the 
war, 69. 

V. 

Carthage and Timoleon .... 70-74 

Timoleon declares war against Carthage, 71 — Battle of the 
Crimessus, 73. 

I 
VI. 
Carthage and Agathocles .... 75-91 

Agathocles in extremities, 77 — Agathocles invades Africa, 81 
— Revolt of Bomilcar, 85 — Pyrrhus, 89 — Pyrrhus leaves 
Sicily, 91. 



fAJ?7 11 L 
THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF CARTHAGE. 

I. 

Carthaginian Discoverers .... 95-101 
Along the African Coast, 97 — Gorillas, 99 — A strange tale, loi. 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 
II. 

The Constitution and Religion of Carthage 102-114 

Magistrates of Carthage, 103 — Estates of the realm in 
Carthage, 105 — Justice and religion, 109 — Carthaginian 
Deities, 113. 

III. 

The Revenue and Trade of Carthage . 11 5-1 25 

Carthaginian Mines, 117 — Trade, 119 — Ivory and precious 
stones, 121 — Art and literature, 123 — Wealth and luxury, 125. 



PAJ?T IV. 

CARTHAGE AND ROME. 
I. 

The War in Sicily and on the Sea . . 129-140 

The Romans gain Messana, 131 — Capture of Agrigentum, 133 
— Battle of Myl;£, 137 — Battle of Ecnomus, 139. 

II. 

The Invasion of Africa .... 141-151 

Defeat of Hamilcar, 143 — Xantippus, 145 — Defeat of 
Regulus, 147 — Horace on Regulus, 149 — Revenge for 
Regulus, 151. 

III. 

In Sicily Again 152-165 

Roman Losses at sea, 153 — Roman disasters, 157 — The 
Romans gainEryx, 159 — Hasdrubal's successes, 161 — Battle of 
yEgates Island, 163 — Conclusion of War, 165. 



XVI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IV 

Carthage and her Mercenaries . . 166-177 

Revolt of the mercenaries, 167 — Siege of Utica, 171 — 
Massacre of prisoners, 175 — End of war with mercenaries, 177. 



Carthage and Spain 178-184 

Hamilcar in Spain, 179 — Hannibal, 181 — Siege of Sagun- 
tum, 183. 

VI, 

From the Ebro to Italy .... 185-194 

Passage of the Rhone, 187 — Route over the Alps, 189 — Rocks 
split with vinegar, 193. 

VII. 

The First Campaign in Italy . . . 195-205 

Scipio retires to the Trebia, 199 — Sempronius eager to 
fight, 201 — The Carthaginians victorious, 205. 



VIII. > 

Trasumennus 206-211 

Lake Trasumennus, 207 — Slaughter of the Romans, 209 — 
Hannibal's policy, 211. 

IX. 
Fabius and his Tactics .... 212-217 

Hannibal a master of stratagem, 213 — Fabius and Minu- 
cius, 215 — Varro and Paullus in command, 217. 



CONTENTS. XVll 

PAGE 

X. 
Cannae ........ 218-224 

Hannibal's army, 219 — The struggle, 221 — Will he march on 
Rome ? 223. 

XL 

After Cann^ ...... 225-231 

Mago at Carthage, 227 — Hannibal's prospects, 229— Taren- 
tum gained, 231. 

XII. 
The Turn of the Tide .... 232-244 

Attempted relief of Capua, 233 —Capua lost to Hannibal, 235 — 
Carthage loses Sicily, 237 — Roman successes in Spain, 239 — ■ 
Death of the Scipios, 241 — Capture of New Carthage, 243. 



XIII. 
The Last Chance of Victory . . . 245-252 

The death of Marcellus, 247 — Nero's great march, 249 — Ode 
from Horace, 251. 

XIV 

The Last Struggle ..... 253-264 

Scipio and Syphax, 257 — Hannibal recalled, 259 — Zama, 261 
— Terms of peace, 263. 

I XV. 

[i, Hannibal in Exile ..... 265-271 

I Hannibal with Antiochus, 267 — Hannibal in Bithynia, 269 — • 



Character of Hannibal, 271. 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XVI. 

The Beginning of the End . . . 272-279 

Cato's hostility to Carthage, 273 — Africanus the Younger, 275 
— Expedition against Carthage, 277 — War declared, 279. 

XVII. 
The Siege and Fall of Carthage . . 280-301 

The walls of Carthage, 281 — The Romans lose their ally Masi- 
nissa, 285 — Scipio in command, 289— Attack on the Me- 
gara, 293 — Engagements between the fleets, 295 — Fighting 
in the city, 297 — Successors of Carthage, 301. 



Index 303 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



CROSSING THE ALPS 



PAGE 

Fro7itispiece 



CARTHAGINIAN STELE FROM SULCI (SARDINIA). . . l6 

PLAN AND SECTION OF A CARTHAGINIAN TOMB AT 

MALTA 17 

PHCENICIAN SARCOPHAGUS FOUND AT SOLUNTE (SICILY) 23 

ONE OF THE TOWERS OF ERYX 36 

CARTHAGINIAN PLATTER- SILVER 40 

THE WALL OF MOTYA 48 

VOTIVE BAS-RELIEF TO PERSEPHONE . . . . 61 

AFRICAN AQUEDUCT . . . . . . . 79 

RURAL CISTERNS 83 

PLAN OF THE RUINS OF UTICA 87 

VOTIVE STELE FROM CARTHAGE (HIPPOPOTAMUS) . 98 

VOTIVE STELE TO TANIT I07 

A STELE -TO TANIT IIO 

VOTIVE STELE TO TANIT FROM CARTHAGE . . . ' III 

VOTIVE STELES FROM CARTHAGE II 3 

CARTHAGINIAN COIN II5 

CARTHAGINIAN COIN (ELECTRUM) . . . . I16 



XX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



CARTHAGINIAN COIN (SILVER) 

VOTIVE STELE FROM CARTHAGE . 

WRITING-CASE 

VOTIVE STELE (BULL) 

DUILIAN COLUMN 

RESERVOIRS OF CARTHAGE .... 

CROSS SECTION OF CISTERN WALL. (FROM DAUX) 

STELE AT LILYBiEUM 

COIN : THE TEMPLE AND RAMPARTS OF ERYX 

PHCENICIAN WALL AT ERYX .... 

POSTERN IN THE WALL OF ERYX 

PLAN OF HARBOUR AT UTICA 

MAP OF PENINSULA OF CARTHAGE 

CROSSING THE ALPS 

ITALIA SEPTENTRIONALIS .... 

TREBIA 

ITALIA MERIDIONALIS ..... 

THE TRIPLE WALL OF THAPSUS 

THE GREAT WALL AT THAPSUS 

PORT OF CARTHAGE (FROM SARCOPHAGI) 

THE HARBOURS OF CARTHAGE (ACCORDING TO BEULE 

HARBOURS OF CARTHAGE (ACCORDING TO DAUX) 

ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BERTHS (ACCORDING TO 
BEULE) 

PLAN OF WALL AT BYRSA .... 

AFRICAN COLISEUM 



PART I. 
LEGEND AND EARLY HISTORY. 

I. — The Legend of Dido. 
II. — The Growth of Carthage. 



Unfortunately we know very little about the history of this 
period ; and that little is difficult to assign to any particular 
time. Our chief authorities are Justin, a writer of uncertain 
date, who wrote an epitome of an earlier work composed by 
one Trogus Pompeius (B.C. 85-15?) ; and Polybius, who gives 
us the text of the treaties made between Carthnge and Rome. 
Of Polybius we shall have something to say hereafter. 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



THE LEGEND OF DIDO. 

" Malgernus, King of Tyre, died, leaving behind 
him a son, Pygmalion, and a daughter, Elissa or Dido, 
a maiden of singular beauty. Pygmalion, though 
he was yet but a boy, the Tyrians made their 
king. Elissa married Acerbas, whom some also call 
Sichseus, her mother's brother, and priest of Her- 
cules. Among the Tyrians the priest of Hercules 
was counted next in honour to the king. Acerbas 
had great wealth, which he was at much pains to hide, 
so that, fearing the king, he put it away, not in his 
dwelling, but in the earth. Nevertheless the thing 
became commonly known. Thereupon King Pyg- 
malion, being filled with covetousness, and heeding 
not the laws of man, and having no respect to natural 
affection, slew Acerbas, though he was brother to his 
mother and husband to his sister. Elissa for many 
days turned away her face from her brother, but at 
last, putting on a cheerful countenance, feigned to be 
reconciled to him. And this she did, not because she 
hated him the less, but because she thought to fly 
from the country, in which counsel she had for abettors 



4 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

many nobles of the city, who also were greatly dis- 
pleased at the king. With this purpose she spake to 
Pygmalion, saying, ' I have had enough of sorrow. 
Let me come and dwell in thy house, that I be no 
more reminded of my troubles.' This the king heard 
with great joy, thinking that with his sister there 
would also come into his hands all the treasures of 
Acerbas. But when he sent his servants to bring his 
sister's possessions to his palace she won them over 
to herself, so that they became partakers of her flight. 
Having thus put all her riches upon shipboard, and 
taking with her also such of the citizens as favoured 
her, she set sail, first duly performing sacrifice to Her- 
cules. And first she voyaged to Cyprus, where the 
priest of Jupiter, being warned of the gods, offered 
himself as a sharer of her enterprize on this condi- 
tion, that he and his posterity should hold the high 
priesthood for ever in the city which she should 
found. From Cyprus also she carried off a com- 
pany of maidens, that they might be wives for 
her people. Now when Pygmalion knew that his 
sister had fled he was very wroth, and would have 
pursued after her and slain her. Nevertheless, being 
overcome by the entreaties of his mother, and yet 
more by fear of vengeance from the gods, he let 
her go ; for the prophets prophesied, ' It will go ill 
with thee, if thou hinder the founding of that which 
shall be the most fortunate city in the whole world.' 

" After these things Queen Elissa came to Africa, 
and finding that the people of those parts were well 
affected to strangers, and had a special liking for 
buying and selling, she made a covenant with them, 



THE BUILDING OF CARTHAGE. 5 

buying a piece of land, so much as could be covered 
with the hide of an ox, that she might thereon refresh 
her companions, who were now greatly wearied with 
their voyage. This hide she cut into small strips that 
she might thus enclose a larger piece. And after- 
wards the place was called Byrsa, which is, being 
interpreted, the Hide. 

" To this place came many of the people of the land, 
bringing merchandize for sale ; and in no great space 
of time there grew up a notable town. The people 
of Utica also, which city had been before founded by 
the men of Tyre, sent ambassadors, claiming kindred 
with these new comers, and bidding them fix their 
abode in the same place where they themselves dwelt. 
But the barbarous people were not willing that they 
should depart from among them. Therefore, by 
common consent of all, there was built a fair city, to 
which the builders gave the name of Carthage; and it 
was agreed between Elissa and the people of the land 
that she should pay .for the ground on which the said 
city was founded a certain tribute by the year. In 
the first place where they were minded to lay the 
foundations of the city there was found the head of 
an ox. Of this the soothsayers gave this interpreta- 
tion, saying, * This signifieth a fruitful land, but one 
that is full of labour, and a city that shall ever be a 
servant to others.' Therefore the city was moved to 
another place, where, when they began to dig founda- 
tions again, there was found the head of a horse. 
Thereupon the prophets prophesied again : * This 
shall be a powerful nation, great in war, and this 
fq'undation augureth of victory.' 



b THE srORY OF CARTHAGE. 

" After these things, the city greatly flourishing and 

the beauty of Queen EHssa (for she was very fair) 

being spread abroad, larbas. King of the Moors, sent 

for the chief men of Carthage to come to him ; and 

when they were come he said, ' Go back to the 

Queen, and say that I demand her hand in marriage; 

and if she be not willing, then I will make war upon 

her and her city.' These men, fearing to tell the 

matter plainly to the Queen, conceived a crafty device. 

' King larbas,' said they, ' desireth to find some one 

who shall teach his people a more gentle manner of 

life ; but who shall be found that will leave his own 

kinsfolk and go to a barbarous people that are as the 

beasts of the field .-*' The Queen reproved them, saying, 

' No man should refuse to endure hardness of life if it 

be for his country's sake ; nay, he must give to it his 

very life, if need be.' Then said the messengers, 

'Thou art judged out of thine own mouth, O Queen. 

What therefore thou counsellest to others do thyself, 

if thou wouldst serve thy country.' By this subtlety she 

was entrapped, which when she had perceived, first she 

called with much lamentations and many tears on the 

name of her husband Acerbas, and then affirmed that 

she was ready to do that which the will of the gods had 

laid upon her. ' But first,' she said, ' give me the 

space of three months that I may lament my former 

estate.' This being granted to her, she built, in the 

furthest part of the city, a great pyre, whereupon she 

might offer sacrifices to the dead, and appease the 

shade of Acerbas before that she took to herself 

another husband. Upon this pyre, having first offered 

many sheep and oxen, she herself mounted, having a 



DIDO AND MNEAS. 7 

sword in her hand. Then looking upon the people 
that was gathered about the pyre, she said, ' Ye bid 
me go to my husband. See then, for I go.' There- 
upon she drave the sword into her heart, and so fell 
dead." 

Such was the legend of the founding of Carthage 
as Virgil found it when he was writing his great 
poem, the yEneid. He took it, and boldly shaped it 
to suit his own purposes. This is how he tells it. 

"yEneas, saved by the gods from the ruin of Troy to 
be the founder of Rome, comes after many wander- 
ings to the island of Sicily, and thence sets sails for 
Italy, the land which has been promised to him. But 
Juno, who cannot forget her wrath against the sons 
of Xroy, raises a great storm, which falls upon his 
fleet and scatters it, sinking some of the ships, and 
driving the rest upon the shore of Africa, near to the 
place where Elissa, who is also called Dido, had newly 
founded her city of Carthage. By her he and his 
companions are hospitably received. But this is not 
enough for Venus, his mother. ' For,' says she to 
herself, 'haply the mind of the Queen and her people 
will change concerning my son, and they will deal 
unfriendly with him and the men of Troy.' There- 
upon she devises this device. She causes her son Cupid, 
or Love, to take upon him the shape of Ascanius, the 
young son of ^neas ; but Ascanius himself she carries 
to her own bower in Cyprus, and there lulls him to 
sleep. Meanwhile ^neas is entertained by the Queen 
at ja great banquet, and tells the story of the fall of 
Trby and of his wanderings ; and as he tells it, the false 



8 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Ascanius sits in the Queen's lap, and breathes into her 
heart the spirit of love. After this comes Juno to Venus, 
and says to her: ' Why should there be enmity between 
me and thee ? I love Carthage, and thou lovest the 
men of Troy. Let us make an agreement that these 
two may join together in one city ; and to this end 
let Dido take ^neas for her husband.' To this Venus 
gave her assent ; and so it was contrived. 

"But the thing pleased not Jupiter that ^neas 
should so forget the greatness to which he was called. 
Therefore he called Mercury, that was his messenger, 
and said to him : ' Go to the Trojan chief where he 
now lingers at Carthage, forgetting the city which he 
must build in Italy, and tell him that he must make 
ready to depart.' So Mercury bore the message to 
^neas ; and ^Eneas knew that the will of the gods 
was that he should depart, and bade his companions 
forthwith make ready the ships. This they did ; and 
when the time came, though it was sorely against his 
will, iEneas departed, knowing that he could not re- 
sist the will of the gods. And when Dido saw that 
he was gone, she bade them build a great pyre of 
wood, and mounting upon it, slew herself with the 
very sword which ^neas had left in her chamber." 



^<^ 




II. 



THE GROWTH OF CARTHAGE. 



I HAVE said that it was a bold change by which 
Virgil sought to shape the legend of Elissa or Dido 
to suit the purpose of his own poem. Bold indeed it 
was, for he brings together in the Queen of Carthage 
and the Hero of Troy, persons who must have been 
separated from each other in time by more than two 
hundred years. Ascanius, he tells us himself in the 
.^neid, was to found Alba, and at Alba the kingdom 
should remain for three hundred years, till the 
priestess of Vesta should bear a son to Mars, who 
should found the great city of Rome. There must 
therefore have been more than three hundred years 
between the coming of .^neas into Italy and the 
founding of Rome. But, on the other hand, it was 
commonly agreed that Carthage was not a hundred 
years older than Rome. If we are to follow Justin, ' 
from whom I have taken the legend told in the first 
chapter, its foundation may be put in the year 850; 
but it must not be supposed that this date is as cer- 
tain as that of the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence, or that of the Battle of Waterloo. 

The legend tells us that the first founders of Car- 
thage came from Tyre. Very likely this is true ; it 



10 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

is certain that they belonged to the nation of which 
Tyre was the chief city, the Phoenicians. This people 
dwelt in the little strip of land (not much larger than 
the American State of New Hampshire, or about 
twice the size of the English county of Yorkshire) 
which is called Palestine, and which occupies the 
south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean coast. The 
inland tribes of this people, who are known to us in 
the Bible history under the name of Canaanites, were 
subdued and nearly destroyed by the Hebrews, when, 
after their escape from slavery in Egypt, they invaded 
the country about fourteen hundred years before 
Christ. But many of the dwellers of the coast 
remained unsubdued. In the south were the Philis- 
tines with their five cities, almost always at war with 
their Hebrew neighbours, sometimes almost conquer- 
ing them, I and sometimes, as in the days of David 
and Solomon, paying tribute. In the north, again, 
were the great cities of Tyre and Sidon. Between 
these and the Hebrews there seems to have been 
commonly friendship. ^They were a nation of sea- 
men and traders, and they had to import the food ^ 
which they did not wish, or perhaps were not able, to 
grow for themselves. For this food they paid either 
with the produce of their own artists and handicrafts- 

' Thus we read (i Samuel xiii.) that the Israelites were obliged to 
go down to the Philistines to sharpen their tools, and that only the 
king and the king's son possessed sword and spear. 

" Thus we find Solomon paying Hiram, king of Tyre, for the help 
that he had given in the building of the Temple with wine and oil. And 
more than a thousand years after, the men of Tyre are unwilling to 
remain at enmity with King Herod, because their country is " nourished 
from the king's country." 



THE TYRIAN TRADERS. II 

men, with timber cut in the cedar forest of Lebanon, 
or work in bronze and iron, or rich purple dyes, or 
with merchandize which they had themselves im- 
ported. As traders, indeed, they travelled very far, 
and while seeking new markets in which to buy and 
sell, they made great discoveries. They went as far 
south, some say, as the Cape of Good Hope, certainly 
as far as Sierra Leone ; and as far north as Britain, 
from which they fetched tin, and probably copper. 
But I shall have more to say of this hereafter. It 
was, however, chiefly the coasts of the Mediterranean 
that they were accustomed to visit ; and along these 
it was that they established their trading posts. It 
is the story of the most famous of these posts that I 
have now to tell. 

The word Carthage — in Latin Carthago, and in 
GvQQ^K Karchedon — contains in another form, changed to 
suit European tongues, the word Kirjath, a name fami- 
liar to us in the Bible in the compounds Kirjath-Arba 
and Kirjath-Jearim.i Kirjath means "Town," and the 
name by which Carthage was known to its own 
inhabitants was Kirjath - Hadeschath, or the " New 
Town " — nezu, to distinguish it either from the old 
town of Tyre, from which its settlers had come forth, 
or from the older settlement of Utica, older by nearly 

' These resemblances of Carthaginian and Hebrew names are very 
interesting, and show us how close was the kindred between the Jews 
and the Canaanite or Phoenician tribes, enemies to each other though 
they mostly were. The chief magistrates of the city, for instance, had 
the title of Shophetim, the Hebrew word for "judges," which the 
Romans changed into Siiffeles. One of the Hamilcars again, of whom 
I shall have to speak hereafter, bore the surname of Barca, and Barca 
is the same as the Hebrew Barak, or " lightning." 



12 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

three hundred years, which lay about fifteen miles to 
the north-west. 

The " New Town " was built in a little bay of the 
great natural harbour, the finest and most com- 
modious that is to be found along the whole of the 
north coast of Africa, which is now called the Bay 
of Tunis.i The site was very happily chosen. A 
river, the Bagradas (now the Mejerda) was near.^ 
The land was well watered and fertile, rich with corn 
and wine and oil. It is a proof of its natural ad- 
vantages that within two centuries of its total de- 
struction, Carthage became the third city of the Empire, 
and that its modern successor is one of the largest 
and most prosperous of all the purely Mahometan 
cities of the world. 

Of the city's early history we know very little ; 
indeed, it may be said, nothing. More than two 
centuries are an absolute blank. We hear nothing 
for certain of Carthage and its doings, though we 
may guess that it was busy trading, and sometimes 
fighting with its neighbours and with the inhabitants 
of the African coast, of Sicily, and of Spain. Then 
about the middle of the sixth century B.C. (but the 
date is quite uncertain) we hear of a certain king or 
chief who bore the name of Malchus.3 Malchus 
made war against the African tribes in the neighbour- 
hood of the city, and subdued many of them. From 

' The present city of that name occupies a site a little to the souths 
east of the ancient Carthage. There was a Tunis or Tunes in classical 
times, but it was always a small town. 

^ Its actual mouth was at Utica. 

3 Note again the Hebrew names. The high priest's servant whose 
ear Peter cut off at Gethsemane "was named Malchus," 



MALCHUS AND MAGO. I3 

Africa he crossed over into Sicily, and conquered a 
part, doubtless the western part, of the island. From 
Sicily, again, he went on to Sardinia. There he was 
beaten in a great battle. The Carthaginians, who 
were always cruel and often unjust to their defeated 
generals, condemned him to banishment. Malchus 
refused to obey, and led his army against his native 
city. The magistrates sent out his son Carthalo to 
intercede with him, but in vain ; Carthalo was seized 
by his father, and actually crucified in sight of the 
city walls. After a while the city was compelled to 
surrender ; but Malchus was content with putting to 
death ten of his chief opponents. Those whom he 
spared not long afterwards brought him to trial, and 
condemned him to death. 

After Malchus came Mago, v/ho still further in- 
creased the military power of the city. His reign or 
chief magistracy — Carthage once had kings, but it is 
not easy to say when the title was abolished ; in- 
deed it is sometimes given to the chief magistrate 
down to a late period of her history — may be said 
to cover the latter part of the sixth century B.C. And 
now for the first time, the State takes a definite place 
in history. The inhabitants of Phocaea, one of the 
Greek colonies on the western coast of Asia Minor, 
had fled from their native city rather than submit 
to the rule of the Persians, binding themselves by 
an oath never to return till a lump of iron which 
they threw into the harbour should rise to the top 
of the water. But before they had been long gone, 
home-sickness proved stronger than their oath, and 
more than half of them returned. The remainder 



14 . THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

pursued their journey with their wives and children, 
and settled at Alalia in Corsica, a place which had 
been already colonized by Greeks. There they took 
to the trade of piracy, a more respectable employ- 
ment, it must be remembered, then than now. After 
five years the Carthaginians and the Etruscans, Rome's 
neighbours on the north, and then an independent and 
a powerful nation, combined against them. A great 
sea-battle followed. The Phocaeans had the sixty 
ships in which they had migrated from their native 
town ; their enemies had double the number, half 
coming from Carthage, half from the sea-ports on the 
Etrurian coast. The victory fell to the Greeks ; but 
it was a victory which was as bad as a defeat ; for 
they lost forty out of their sixty ships, and they were 
compelled to leave their new settlement and to seek 
refuge elsewhere. This battle is supposed to have 
happened in the year 536 B.C. 

Twenty-seven years later we hear of Carthage 
again. Polybius ^ tells us that he had himself seen 
in Rome copies of the three treaties which had been 
made between that State and Carthage. The oldest 
of the three, written, he says, in language so anti- 
quated that even the learned could scarcely under- 
stand it, was concluded in the year 509, the next 
after that in which the kings had been driven out 
from Rome. The provisions of this treaty are in- 
teresting. " The Romans and their allies shall not 
sail beyond the Fair Promontory." The " Fair 
Promontory " was to the north of Carthage. Polybius 
thinks that the Romans were forbidden by this 

' See the account of him in the Intrnduction to Part iv. 



TREATIES WITH ROME. 15 

article of the treaty to sail southwards to the country 
of the Little Syrtis (now the Gulf of Cabos), then 
one of the richest in the world, and for that reason 
called the Markets. It seems more probable that 
" beyond the Fair Promontory " meant westward of 
it, and that it was specially intended to protect the 
Carthaginian markets in Spain. " Merchants selling 
goods in Sardinia and Africa shall pay no customs, 
but only the usual fees to the scribe and crier." The 
Carthaginians, it seems, were, so far, " free traders." 
" If any of the Romans land in that part of Sicily 
which belongs to the Carthaginians, they shall suffer 
no wrong or violence in anything." Finally, Cartha- 
ginians bind themselves not to injure any Latin city, 
whether it was subject to Rome or not. Some years 
later — how many we cannot tell — we hear of another 
treaty made between the same parties. The con- 
ditions are now much less favourable to Rome. Two 
other limits besides the Fair Promontory (unfor- 
tunately we do not know what places are meant by 
them) are imposed on the Roman traders. These, 
too, are now forbidden to trade either in Sardinia or 
Africa. They must not even visit these countries 
except to get provisions or to refit their ships. In 
Sicily and at Carthage they were allowed to trade. 
The Carthaginians claim the power to take prisoners 
and booty out of any Latin city not subject to Rome. 
The city itself, however, they must yield up. In other 
words, they were not to get a footing in Italy. It 
is clear that in the interval the power of Carthage 
had increased and that of Rome had decreased. 
The latter city did indeed suffer many losses during 



i6 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



the first hundred years after the driving out of the 
kings. So much we may see even from the flattering 
accounts of the Roman historians. 

We can thus get some idea of the power and 
dominions of Carthage. It has power over much of 
the coast of Africa, though it still continues to pay 
a ground rent for the soil on which its capital was 




CARTHAGINIAN STELE FROM SULCI (SARDINIA). 

built. We hear, indeed, of this payment having been 
refused in the days of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, sons 
and successors of Mago, of the African tribes making 
war for the purpose of enforcing it, and compelling 
the Carthaginians to renew it. Sardinia it claims as 
entirely its own. This island is said to have been 
conquered by the Hasdrubal and Hamilcar mentioned 



CARTHAGINIAN POSSESSIONS. 



17 



above, Hasdrubal dying of his wounds in the course 
of the war. Of Sicily it has a part, of which I shall 
say more hereafter. Malta probably belongs to it. 




Of Spain, which was afterwards to form an important 
portion of the Empire, for the present we hear 
nothing. < 



15 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

While Carthage was thus busy extending and 
strengthening its dominions, it narrowly escaped a 
great danger from what was then the most powerful 
empire in the world. In the year 525 Cambyses, the 
second king of Persia, conquered Egypt, a task which 
he seems to have accomplished with great ease. He 
then looked about for other countries into which he 
might carry his arms. The great cities of Cyrene 
and Barca, lying about five hundred miles to the west 
of the mouths of the Nile, submitted to him. He 
thought that he might push his conquests still further 
in the same direction and make Carthage itself a 
tributary. But a distance of two thousand miles and 
more was too much for his army, and the conquest 
would have to be made by his fleet. Here he met 
with an obstacle which he could not overcome. The 
fleet consisted for the most part of Phoenician ships, 
and the Phoenicians refused to take part in the expe- 
dition. "We are bound," said they, "to the Cartha- 
ginians by solemn oaths. They are, too, our children; 
and it would be wicked in us to make war against 
them." The Great King was obliged to be content 
with this answer and to give up his scheme. 



PART 11. 
CARTHAGE AND GREECE. 

I. — Hamilcar and Hannibal. 
II.— Carthage and Dionysius (406-405). 
III. — Carthage and Dionysius (397). 
IV. — The Last Struggle with Dionysius. 
V. — Carthage and Timoleon. 
VI. — Carthage, Agathocles and Pyrrhus. 



Here our chief authority is Diodorus Siculus, a Greek writer 
who " flourished " about the beginning of our era. He was a 
native of Sicily, and in his Universal History, or "Historical 
Library," as he seems to have called it himself, wrote an 
account of the world from the earliest time down to his own 
day. With this work he took much pains, travelling over 
many of the countries of which he intended to write the 
history, and collecting the works of authors who had treated 
the same subjects before him. Much of his History is lost, 
but the ten books from the eleventh to the twentieth have been 
recovered. As he was naturally very much interested in the 
affairs of his own island, he seems to have taken special pains 
with this part of his work, which includes the one hundred 
and seventy-five years from the beginning of the second 
Persian war (4S0) down to the year 305. He had before him 
the best authorities, as, for instance, Timasus, who wrote the 
History of Sicily from the earliest times down to 264 (he 
himself died in 256, at the age of ninety-six) ; but he had not 
much judgment in using his materials. Still, his book is of 
very great value for this portion of our story. Fragments, too, 
of the lost books that followed the twentieth have been 
preserved. Justin also tells us something about this time, so 
that, on the whole, we have plenty of authorities. 



I. 

HAMILCAR AND- HANNIBAL. 

Sicily would naturally be the place in which Car- 
thage would first seek to establish a foreign dominion. 
At its nearest point it was not more than fifty miles 
distant ; its soil was fertile, its climate temperate ; it 
was rich in several valuable articles of commerce. We 
have seen that, in the treaty which was made with 
Rome about the end of the sixth century B.C., the 
Carthaginians claimed part of the island as their own. 
It is probable that this part was then less than it had 
been. For more than two hundred years the Greeks 
had been spreading their settlements over the country ; 
and the Greeks were the great rivals of the Phoenicians. 
If they were not as keen traders — -and trade was 
certainly held in less estimation in Athens, and even 
in Corinth, than it was in Tyre and Carthage — they 
were as bold and skilful as sailors, and far more ready 
than their rivals to fight for what they had got or for 
what they wanted. The earliest Greek colony in 
Sicily was Naxos, on the east coast, founded by 
settlers from Euboea in 735. Other Greek cities 
sought room for their surplus population in the same 
field ; and some of the colonies founded fresh settle- 
ments of their own. The latest of them was Agri- 



22 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

gentum on the south coast, which owed its origin to 
Gela, itself a colony of Cretans and Rhodians. As the 
Greeks thus spread westward the Carthaginians retired 
before them, till their dominions were probablyreduced 
to little more than a few trading ports on the western 
coast of the island. As long, indeed, as they could 
trade with the new comers they seemed to be satisfied. 
They kept up, for the most part, friendly relations 
with their rivals, allowing even the right of inter- 
marriage to some at least of their cities. 

But in point of fact they were only waiting their 
opportunity, and the opportunity came when the 
Persians invaded Greece for the second time. Some 
historians tell us that it was agreed by the two 
powers that a combined effort should be made, that, while 
Persia was attacking the mother-country of Greece, 
Carthage should attack its important colonies in Sicily. 
Others insist that there is no proof of any such agree- 
ment having been made. It is not easy to see what 
proof we could expect to find. But there is nothing, I 
think, improbable about it. The Phoenician admirals 
in the service of the Great King who had refused to 
obey Cambyses when he ordered them to sail against 
their kinsmen in Carthage, may very well have 
managed a matter of this kind. Anyhow it is clear 
that Carthage knew that the opportunity had come, 
and eagerly seized it. One of the family of Mago, 
Hamilcar by name, was appointed commander-in- 
chief. He set sail from Carthage with a force which, 
when it had been joined by auxiliaries gathered from 
Sicily and elsewhere, amounted, it is said, to three 
hundred thousand men. There would have been even 




PHCENICIAN SARCOPHAGUS FOUND AT SOLUNTE (sICILY). 



hamilcar's army. 25 

more had not the squadron which conveyed the 
chariots and the cavalry been lost in a storm. The 
number is probably exaggerated — the numbers in 
ancient history are seldom trustworthy — but we may 
take as genuine the list of the nations from which the 
army was recruited. The land-force consisted, we 
hear, of Phoenicians, Libyans, Sardinians, Corsicans, 
Iberians, Ligyes, and Helisyki. The first four names 
need little explanation. The Phoenicians were 
native Carthaginians and men of kindred race from 
the mother- country of Phoenicia, from Cyprus, and 
from other settlements on the Mediterranean shore. 
Sardinia, we know from its mention in the treaty of 
509, belonged to Carthage ; Corsica had probably been 
since acquired. The Iberians were Spaniards, over 
whose country Carthage was gaining some influence. 
The Ligyes were the Ligurians from the north- 
west of the Italian peninsula ;^ the Helisyki may 
have been Volscians, neighbours of Rome on the 
south-east and for some time its most formidable 
enemies. 

Hamilcar reached Panormus (nov/ Palennd) in 
safety with the main body of his fleet. " The war is 
over," he is reported to have said, thinking that only 
the chances of the sea could have saved Sicily from 
such an army as his. At Panormus he gave his army 
three days' rest, and repaired his ships. Then he 
marched on Himera. There he dragged his ships on 
shore, and made a deep ditch and a rampart of wood to 
protect them. His forces he divided between two camps. 
The crews of his fleet occupied one, his soldiers the 

' The modern Piedmont. 



26 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

other. The two covered the whole of the west side 
of the city. A force from the city which encountered 
his advance guard was driven in, and Theron, the 
tyrant of Agrigentum, who had been appointed to 
take command of the garrison by Gelon of Syracuse, 
the most powerful monarch in the island, sent off in 
hot haste for help to his chief Gelon had everything 
ready, and marched at once with an army far greater 
than any other Greek state could then have raised, 
fifty thousand infantry and five thousand horse. After 
thoroughly fortifying the camp which he had pitched 
near the city, he sent out his cavalry to attack the 
foraging parties of the Carthaginians. These suffered 
a signal defeat ; and the people of Himera now 
grew so confident that they actually threw open 
the gateways which, in their determination to 
make a desperate resistance, they had at first bricked 
up. 

The conclusive battle was not long delayed, and 
Gelon is said to have won it by the help of a curious 
stratagem. His scouts had intercepted a letter from 
the people of Selinus to Hamilcar, in which there was 
a promise that they would send on a day named a 
force of cavalry to his assistance. Gelon instructed 
some of his own horsemen to play the part of the 
cavalry of Selinus. They were to make their way into 
the naval camp of the Carthaginians, and then to 
turn against their supposed allies. A signal was 
agreed upon which they were to show when they were 
ready to act. Gelon's scouts were posted on the hills 
to watch for it, and to communicate it to the main 
body of his army in the plain. The fight was long 



THE FATE OF HAMILCAR. 27 

and bloody ; it lasted from sunrise to sunset, but the 
Carthaginians had lost heart, and the Greeks were 
confident of victory. No quarter was given, and by 
night, one hundred and fifty thousand men (it must 
surely be an impossible number ! ) had fallen. The rest 
fled to the hills, and were there compelled by want 
of water to surrender to the people of Agrigentum. 
Of the fate of Hamilcar nothing was ever certainly 
known. Some said that he had been slain by the 
pretended allies from Selinus ; others that, being busy 
with a great sacrifice at which the fire was piled high 
to consume the victims whole, and seeing that the 
fortune of the day was going against him, he threw 
himself into the flames and disappeared. His body 
was never found, but the Greeks erected a monument 
to his memory on the field of battle; and the Cartha- 
ginians, though never accustomed to be even commonly 
just to their beaten generals, paid him, after his death, 
honours which it became a custom to renew year by 
year. The rest of the story is curiously tragic. Twenty 
ships had been kept by Hamilcar to be used as might 
be wanted, when the rest of the fleet was drawn up. 
These and these only escaped out of the three thou- 
sand vessels of war and commerce, which Hasdrubal 
had brought with him. But even these did not get 
safe home. They were overtaken by a storm, and one 
little boat carried to Carthage the dismal news that 
their great army had perished.^ The city 'was over- 

' Note how a similar story is told of the return of Xerxes from Greece, 
after his defeat in the Persian War. According to Herodotus (on 
excellent authority, as he was born in 484, i.e. four years before the war) 
Xerxes returned by land with a considerable part of his army ; neverthe- 
less ttie Roman poet Juvenal writes— 



28 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

whelmed with dismay and grief. An embassy was 
at once sent to Gelon to beg for peace. Peace was 
granted, but on hard conditions. Carthage was to pay 
a ransom of two thousand talents, to build two chapels 
in memory of the event, and, one writer tells us, 
to abolish the hideous practice of human sacrifices. 
If this last condition was ever agreed to, it was 
certainly not kept. 

It has been said, and one would like to believe, 
that the great battle of Himera, by which the Greek 
colonies in Sicily were relieved from the pressing 
fear of Carthage, was fought on the very same day 
on which the Persians were defeated at Salamis. 

Carthage could not have been long in recovering 
from this loss, for we find her able soon afterwards 
to dictate a treaty to Rome, but she did not meddle 
with Sicilian affairs for many years. But in 410 a 
Sicilian town, Egesta, invited her aid against their 
neighbours of Selinus.^ Both towns were near the 
Carthaginian settlements ; and it M^as possible that 
these might suffer, if Selinus, which was said to be 
the aggressor, were allowed to become too powerful. 
But probably the desire to avenge the defeat of 
seventy years before was the chief reason why Car- 
thage promised the help that was asked. It so 
happened, too, that Hannibal, grandson of the Hamil- 

" Through shoals ot dead, o'er billows red with gore, 
A single ship the beaten monarch bore." 
But then Juvenal wished to point the moral of " the vanity of human 
wishes." 

* Curiously enough it was a quarrel between these same two towns 
that had been the immediate cause of the disastrous expedition of 
Athens against Syracuse. 



HANNIBAL BEFORE SELINUS. 29 

car who had perished at Himera, was the senior of 
the two first magistrates of the city. He had been 
brought up in exile — for Gisco, his father, had been 
banished after the defeat of Himera — and at this 
very city of Selinus. " He was by nature," says the 
historian, "a hater of the Greeks," and he did all he 
could to persuade his countrymen to undertake the 
war. 

After some negotiations which came to nothing, 
Hannibal sent a force of 5,000 Africans and 800 
Italian mercenaries to Sicily. The army of Selinus, 
which was busy plundering the territory of their 
enemies, was surprised, and lost a thousand men 
and all the booty which it had collected. Selinus 
now sent to Syracuse to beg for help, and Egesta, 
on her part, made a fresh appeal to Carthage. This 
appeal was answered in a way that took the Sicilians 
by surprise. Hannibal had collected a great force of 
Spaniards and Africans. This he carried to Sicily in a 
fleet of as many as 1,500 transports, escorted by sixty 
ships of war. It numbered, according to the smallest 
estimate, 100,000 men, and was furnished with an 
abundance of all the engines used for sieges. The 
general lost no time. Without a day's delay he 
marched upon Selinus, invested it, and at once began 
the assault. Six towers of wood were brought up 
against the walls ; battering-rams headed with iron 
were driven against them, while a multitude of archers 
and slingers showered arrows and stones upon their 
defenders. The fortifications had been allowed, during 
a long period of peace, to fall out of repair ; and the 
Italian mercenaries ^were not long in forcing their 



30 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

way in. These were driven out again with great loss, 
and for a time the assault was suspended. The 
besieged sent their swiftest horsemen to beg for 
instant help from Syracuse, Gela, and Agrigentum. 
It was promised, but while it was being prepared 
Hannibal was pressing his attack with the utmost 
fury. A great part of the wall was thrown down by 
the battering-rams ; but the people of Selinus still 
fought with the courage of despair. For nine days 
and nights the struggle went on, every street, almost 
every house, being fiercely contested. At last the 
numbers of the barbarians overpowered resistance. 
Between two and three thousand of the armed men 
escaped ; about twice as many of both sexes were 
made prisoners ; the rest were massacred. As many 
as sixteen thousand bodies are said to have been 
counted. 

At the very time when Selinus was taken, the 
advance guard of the Syracusan army reached Agri- 
gentum, They tried to make terms with the con- 
querors. An embassy was sent to Hannibal, begging 
him to ransom the prisoners and respect the temples 
of the gods. Hannibal replied, " The men of Selinus 
have not been able to keep their freedom, and must 
make trial of slavery. As for the gods, they have 
left Selinus, being wroth with its inhabitants." To 
a second embassy, headed by a citizen who had 
always been on friendly terms with Carthage, he 
made a gentler answer. The survivors might return, 
dwell in their city and till their lands, paying tribute 
to Carthage. The walls were razed to the ground, and 
according to some accounts, the whole city was de- 



ATTACK ON HIMERA. 3 1 

stroyed. To this day the ruins of the temples show 
the marks of the crowbars by which the columns were 
overthrown. 

But Selinus was not the real object of Hannibal's 
expedition. That was to be found elsewhere, at 
Himera, where, seventy years before, his grandfather 
had perished. To Himera, accordingly (it lay on the 
opposite, i.e. the north coast, of the island) he marched 
without delay. Forty thousand troops he posted at 
some distance from the city, probably to deal with 
any relieving force from the other Greek cities. With 
the rest of his army, now increased by twenty thou- 
sand auxiliaries from the native Sicilians, he sur- 
rounded the walls. 

He did not intend, however, to wait for the slow 
operation of a blockade, but attacked the town as 
fiercely as he had attacked Selinus. The walls were 
battered and undermined, and more than one breach 
was made in them. At first he was repulsed. The 
people of Himera fought with all the courage of their 
race, and they had the help of four thousand soldiers 
from Syracuse and elsewhere. The Carthaginians 
were driven back, and the breaches repaired. This 
success emboldened them to attack the besiegers. 
Leaving a sufficient force to guard the walls, they 
sallied forth, and fell on the hostile lines. Taken by 
surprise, the Carthaginians gave way. Their very 
numbers were against them, for they were too closely 
thronged to be able to act, and suffered almost 
more, says the historian, from each other than from 
the enemy. The assailants, who numbered about ten 
thousand, were roused to do their best by the thought 



32 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

of their helpless kinsfolk, women and children and 
old men, who were watching them from the walls. 
At first it seemed as if Himera was to be another 
Marathon. As many as six thousand of the besiegers 
(to take the smallest and most reasonable computation) 
were slain. But the pursuit was pushed too far. 
Hannibal brought down his army of reserve from the 
hills on which it had been posted, and fell upon the 
victorious Greeks. A fierce fight ensued, but the 
people of Himera and their allies were overpowered. 
The main body of them retreated into the city, but 
three thousand were unwilling or unable to leave 
the field, and, after performing prodigies of valour, 
perished where they stood. 

At this crisis came twenty-five Syracusan ships of 
war, which had been taking part in the war then 
being carried on between Athens and Sparta. At 
first the besieged were full of hope. It was rumoured 
that, besides the ships, the Syracusans were coming to 
their help with a levy en masse. But then came a 
most disquieting report. Hannibal was filling, it was 
said, his own ships with the picked troops of his army, 
and intended to fall upon Syracuse when that city 
should be stripped of its able-bodied men. The 
Syracusan commander dared not stay at Himera in 
the face of this alarm. The ships of war must, he 
said, sail home at once. But they would take as 
many of the helpless population of Himera as they 
could hold. The offer was accepted ; for dreadful as 
it was thus to leave their homes, it was the only hope 
of escape that the poor creatures had. The ships 
were filled till they could hold no more. Then the 



HANNIBAL'S VENGEANCE. 33 

Syracusan general marched out of the town in such 
haste, we are told, that he did not even stop to bury 
his own dead. Many of the inhabitants who could 
not be received on board the ships accompanied him 
on his march, preferring this to waiting for the return 
of the fleet ; for this was to come back and carry off 
the rest of the population. 

It was well for them that they did so. The next 
day the Carthaginians renewed the assault. The 
besieged were sadly reduced in numbers and weary, 
for after the battle of the day before they had spent 
the night in arms upon the walls. Still they held out. 
All that day the battle was kept up. On the morrow 
the ships came back, but at the very moment of their 
coming in sight a great part of the wall was broken 
down by the battering-rams, and the Spaniards in Han- 
nibal's army rushed in. A general massacre followed, 
and was continued till Hannibal issued strict orders 
that all that remained were to be taken alive. It was 
no feeling of mercy that prompted these orders. The 
women and children were divided among the con- 
querors ; the men were taken to the spot where 
Hamilcar had been last seen alive, and there to the 
number of three thousand cruelly slaughtered, an 
expiatory sacrifice to the spirit of the dead. Himera 
itself was utterly destroyed. The walls and houses 
were razed to the ground ; the temples were first 
plundered and then burnt. 

The rest of the Greek cities in Sicily must have 
trembled lest the fate which had fallen on Selinus 
and Himera should overtake themselves. But for the 
time, at least, their fears were relieved. Hannibal 



34 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

had done what he came to do, had avenged the 
defeat of Himera, the death of his grandfather, and 
his father's exile, and he was satisfied. He sent the 
native Sicilians who had joined him to their homes, 
dismissed many of his mercenaries, and, after leaving 
sufficient force to hold the territory which he had 
occupied, carried the rest, of his army to Carthage. 
He brought with him much spoil and many trophies, 
and his countrymen received him with the highest 
honours. He haa won in a few weeks' time victories 
that surpassed all that had ever been gained by 
Carthage before. 




CARTHAGE AND DIONYSIUS (406-405). 

Hannibal's success in Sicily had encouraged the 
Carthaginians to hope that the whole island might 
yet be theirs. They resolved on making another 
expedition, and appointed Hannibal to the chief 
command. At first he declined the office, pleading 
his advanced age, but consented to act when Himilco 
son of Hanno, a kinsman of his own, was joined with 
him in the command. The two generals sent envoys 
to treat with the chiefs in Spain and the Balearic 
Islands ; they went themselves to enlist troops among 
the African tribes and in the various Phoenician 
settlements along the coast. Mercenaries were also 
hired from other countries, and especially from Italy. 
The Italians in Hannibal's former army, thinking 
themselves badly treated by the general, had taken 
service with Syracuse, and were, as their late general 
knew, a very formidable force. At last in 406 — four 
years, i.e., after the first expedition — the invading force 
set sail. They numbered, on the lowest calculation, 
1 20,000 ; one writer puts them down at nearly three 
times as many. They were carried across in more 
than a thousand transports ; and these again were 
convoyed by a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships 



36 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



of war. The Greeks, taught by experience, were 
resolved not to be behindhand this time with their 
preparations for resistance. Forty Carthaginian ships 
had been sent on in advance to Sicily. Against these 
the Syracusans sent a squadron of equal strength, 
i he two fleets met near the famous promontory 




ONE OF THE TOWERS OF ERYX. 



of Eryx. After a long struggle the Greeks were 
victorious, and sank fifteen of the enemy's ships, the 
rest retiring to the African coast. Hannibal, hearing 
of the reverse, sailed out with fifty fresh ships. Before 
this new force the Syracuse squadron retired. It was 
now evident that the invasion could not be prevented. 



SIEGE OF AGRIGENTUM. ^y 

All that remained was to make the best possible 
preparations for resisting it. Syracuse sent embassies 
begging for help to the Greeks in Italy and to Sparta, 
as well as to all the communities of the same race in 
the island. The city which felt itself most in danger 
was Agrigentum, the richest and most populous place 
in the island after Syracuse, and, indeed, scarcely 
inferior to that. The Agrigentines lost no time in 
preparing for defence. They engaged Dexippus, a 
Spartan, who was then at Gela with a body of 1,500 
soldiers, and they also hired the Campanian mer- 
cenaries, eight hundred in number, who in the former 
invasion had served under Hannibal. It was in May, 
406, when the great Carthaginian host appeared 
before their walls. Hannibal began by offering condi- 
tions of peace. He proposed an active alliance ; if 
this did not please the Agrigentines, it would be 
enough if they would be friendly to Carthage, but 
take neither side in the war which she was preparing 
to wage. The Agrigentines, unwilling to desert the 
cause of their countrymen, refused both offers. Then 
the siege began. The town had a very strong 
position, which had been carefully improved. It was 
built on a range of hills, rising in some places to the 
height of more than a thousand feet. On the slope 
of these hills a wall had been built, or, in some places, 
hewn out of the solid rock. Only one place was 
practicable for an assault. Against this the Cartha- 
ginian generals brought up their engines, especially 
two towers, from which they attacked the defending 
force upon the walls. The fighting lasted throughout 
the day without any result ; at night the besieged 



38 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

sallied forth and burnt the enemy's engines. Hanni- 
bal then determined to use the stones of the tombs — 
which, as usual, were outside the walls — to build 
mounds from which he might renew the attack. The 
most splendid of these tombs was the sepulchre of 
Theron, who had reigned in Agrigentum some eighty 
years before, and had borne a part in repelling the 
first Carthaginian invasion. While the men were 
busy in pulling it down it was struck with lightning. 
A religious panic followed. The sentinels declared 
that they were haunted by the spectres of the dead 
whose graves had been violated. A pestilence broke 
out in the camp. Great numbers died, and among 
them Hannibal himself, and the prophets declared 
that the gods were thus sharing their wrath at the 
impiety which had been committed. Himilco ordered 
that no more tombs should be pulled down. As an 
expiation of what had been done, he sacrificed a child 
to Saturn or Moloch, and threw a number of animals 
into the sea as an offering to Neptune. Meantime he 
pressed on the siege, damming up one of the rivers 
by which three sides of the town were surrounded. 
While he was thus engaged the relieving force arrived ; 
it comprised auxiliaries from Magna Graecia^ and from 
most of the Greek cities in the island. The general's 
name was Daphnaeus, and he had with him thirty 
thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry. A 
squadron of thirty ships of war sailed along the coast, 
keeping pace with the army. Himilco sent against 
thepi his Spanish and Italian troops. A battle was 

' The name commonly given to the collection of Greek colonies in 
Southern Italy. See " The Story of Rome," page 39. 



EXECUTION OF THE GENERALS. 39 

fought on the western bank of the Himera, and was 
obstinately contested. In the end the Greeks were 
victorious, routing the enemy with the loss of six 
thousand men. The whole force indeed might, it was 
thought, have been destroyed but for the caution of 
Daphnaeus. Remembering how the men of Himera 
had been attacked and slaughtered in just such a 
moment of victory, he held back his men from pursuit. 
The same fear that Himilco, who of course had vast 
forces in reserve, might take them at a disadvantage, 
kept the Agrigentine generals from sallying forth 
upon the fugitives as they hurried past the walls. 
When the relieving force had entered the city, there 
was naturally much talk among the soldiers about 
the events of the day. Some loudly accused the 
generals of cowardice ; others even declared that 
they had been bribed. The populace rushed to 
the market-place and held a public assembly, be- 
fore which the Agrigentine generals were put upon 
their trial. Menes of Camarina, one of the leaders 
of the relieving force, was the chief accuser. The 
furious people would not listen to any defence from 
the accused. Four out of the five were seized and 
stoned to death ; the fifth was pardoned on account 
of his youth. 

At first Daphnaeus thought of attacking the Car- 
thaginian camp ; but the place was too strongly 
fortified, and he contented himself with scouring the 
roads with his cavalry and cutting off the supplies. 
The distress soon became very great ; many died of 
starvation, and the mercenaries crowded round 
Himilco's tent, clamouring for their rations, and de- 



40 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



daring- that unless they were satisfied they would 
take service with the enemy. The general had just 
heard that the Syracusans were taking a convoy of 




CARTHAGINIAN PLATTER-SILVER. 



provisions by sea to Agrigentum. His only hope of 
relief was in getting hold of this. He entreated the 
mutineers to wait for a few days,givingthem meanwhile 
as pledges the costly drinking-cups and plate of the 



AGRIGENTUM EVACUATED. 4T 

Carthaginian officers. The Syracusan fleet had no 
expectation of being attacked, as Himilco had never 
attempted to claim command of the sea. They were 
taken by surprise and completely defeated. Eight of 
the ships of war were sunk, the others chased to the 
shore, and the whole of the convoy captured. This 
event changed the whole aspect of affairs. It was 
Agrigentum that was now in distress. Before long 
the Italian mercenaries in the city departed. They 
alleged that their time of service had expired ; but 
it was said that Dexippus, their commander, had been 
bribed by the besiegers to tell them that there was 
no food in the city, and that they would find more 
profitable service elsewhere. That there was no 
food was too true ; for when the generals came 
to examine the stores, they found that there was 
nothing to be done but at once to abandon the 
city. 

That very night the plan was carried out. Guarded 
by the troops from the pursuit of the Carthaginians, the 
whole population of Agrigentum, with the exception 
of some who could not and others who would not 
leave their homes, crowded the road that led eastward 
to Gela. At dawn Himilco entered the city. It was 
one of the richest cities in Greece, and from its foun- 
dation three hundred years before it had never had 
an enemy within its walls. The houses were full of 
pictures and statues, of rich furniture, of gold and 
silver plate. The treasuries of the temple were rich 
with the offerings of many generations of worshippers. 
Himilco spared nothing. Everything that was valu- 
able, sacred property as well as profane, was carried 



42 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

off.^ The richest citizen of Agrigentum, unwilling to 
leave his native country, had taken refuge in the 
shrine of Athene. When he found that its sacredness 
would not protect him, he set it on fire and perished 
in the ruins. Himilco, who took the city just about 
mid-winter (ie., eight months after his first landing in 
the island), occupied it till the spring of the following 
year. When he was ready to take the field again, he 
levelled the houses to the ground and defaced the 
temples. This done he marched against Gela, ravaged 
the country, which indeed there was no attempt to 
defend, and then assailed the city. Gela was for the 
time left to its own resources ; it was neither so well 
placed nor so strongly fortified as Agrigentum. Still 
it held out bravely, the women, who had refused to 
be sent away to a place of safety, being conspicuous 
by their courage. 

Meanwhile Dionysius, the Syracusan commander,^ 
had collected a relieving force numbering, to take 

' The most precious possession — indeed, the only one mentioned by 
name— seems to have been the famous " Bull" of the tyrant Phalaris, 
which dated back to about a century and a half before. The Bull had 
been made by Perillus, a native worker in brass, as an instrument of 
torture (victims were enclosed in it and roasted alive). The artist 
is said to have been the first who suffered in it. This may be a fable ; 
and, indeed, the story is told of more than one inventor of instru- 
ments of cruelty, as, -for instance, of Dr. Guillotine, contriver of 
ihe machine which bears his name. But the existence of Phalaris 
and his cruelty, and his use of this particular engine of torture, 
seem to be historical facts, fj^r they are alluded to by Pindar, 
who was not much later in point of time. We shall hear of the Bull 
again. 

^ This was the famous tyrant, the first of the name. He had taken 
advantage of the discredit brought on his rivals by the Carthaginian 
victories to establish himself in supreme power at Syracuse. 



GELA ABANDONED. 43 

the lowest estimate, thirty thousand infantry and a 
thousand cavahy, and accompanied by fifty decked 
vessels. With this he marched to the help of Gela, 
and pitching his camp between the Carthaginians and 
the sea, endeavoured to cut off their supplies. After 
twenty days' skirmishing, in which little good was 
effected, he determined to make an attempt upon 
the camp. The assault was to be delivered simul- 
taneously from three places — from the sea, from the 
western side of the city, and from that part of the 
wall which was especially threatened by the siege 
engines. The sea-front of the camp was the weakest ; 
and here the attack, which was not expected, was 
successful for a time, and, but for the failure of the 
other movements, would probably have decided the 
day. The division that was to operate on the west 
was too late, for by the time it came into action 
the fight at the sea-front was over. That which 
was told off to attack the siege-works, and was 
commanded by Dionysius himself, never came into 
action at all. 

Nothing now remained but to leave Gela to the 
same fate which had overtaken Agrigentum and 
Himera — to abandon it to the fury of the enemy. 
This was done the same night, Himilco having been 
put off his guard by a request from Dionysius that 
he would grant a truce the following day for the 
burial of the dead. All that had strength for the 
journey left the city. Camarina was evacuated in 
the same way. Both cities were plundered and 
destroyed. 

It now seemed as if the whole of Sicily were within 



44 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the grasp of Carthage. The only first-rate town that 
remained to be conquered was Syracuse. We are 
inclined to ask, " Why did not Himilco march upon 
Syracuse after the fall of Gela and Camarina } " just 
as we shall be inclined to ask hereafter, " Why did 
not Hannibal march upon Rome after Cannae ? " 
Doubtless he remembered that, a few years before, 
the most powerful expedition ever sent forth by a 
Greek state had been destroyed before the walls of 
this same city. It must have been difficult, too, to 
feed and pay so vast an army. But probably his 
strongest reason was the second breaking out of 
the plague. It had raged in" -his camp through the 
summer of the year before ; and now that the 
hot weather had returned it probably ^ broke out 
again. Anyhow we know that when he returned to 
Carthage he had lost half his army by sickness. 
Whatever the cause, he sent unasked to Syracuse 
envoys to treat for peace Dionysius was only 
too glad to listen, .and a treaty was concluded on 
these terms : — 

1. Carthage was to keep her old settlements, and 
those of the Sicanian tribes. 

2. Selinus, Agrigentum, Himera, Gela, and Cam- 
arina, might be reoccupied by such of their old in- 
habitants as survived. But they were to be unwalled, 
and were to pay tribute- to Carthage. 

3. Leontini, Messana, and the Sikel tribes, were to 
be independent. 

4. Syracuse was to be under the rule of Dionysius. 

' I say " probably " because the fact is not expressly stated by the 
historian (Diodorus Siculus), though it is strongly implied. 



THE PLAGUE AT CARTHAGE. 



45 



5. Prisoners and ships taken by either party were 
to be restored. 

Successful as the campaign had been it ended in 
disaster to Carthage. The army carried back the 
plague with it. Carthage and the neighbouring dis- 
tricts caught the infection, and multitudes perished. 




III. 

CARTHAGE AND DIONYSIUS (397). 

We have seen that the rule of Dionysius in Syracuse 
was one of the articles of the treaty of 405. Such 
foreign support, of course, did not tend to make him 
popular, and as soon as he felt himself strong enough, 
he threw it off. In 397 he called an assembly of the 
Syracusans, whom he was then doing his best to 
conciliate, and proposed war against Carthage. 
"Just now," he said, " Carthage is weakened by the 
plague ; but she has designs against us which she will 
carry out on the first opportunity. We had better 
deal with her before she has recovered her strength." 
The people greatly approved the proposal ; ali the 
more because Dionysius allowed them to plunder the 
property of Carthaginian citizens who where residing in 
Syracuse, and the ships of Carthaginian merchants that 
happened to be in harbour. News of what had been 
done spread over the island, and produced something 
like a massacre. Carthage had used her victory 
cruelly, -and her misdeeds were now remembered 
against her. Carthaginian rule was oppressive, espe- 
cially in the amount of tribute which was exacted ; and 
Carthaginian habits and ways of life seem to have been 
particularly offensive to the taste of the Greeks. The 



SIEGE OF MOTYA. 47 

result was a rising in the Greek cities which had been 
made tributary by the last treaty. Most of the Car- 
thaginian residents perished. The example of the 
Greeks was soon followed by the native Sicilians, and 
in a very few days the dominions of Carthage in the 
island were reduced to her strongholds on the western 
coast. 

All this happened before war had been formally 
declared. This declaration Dionysius did not omit 
to make. He sent envoys to Carthage with a message : 
if she would restore freedom to the Greek cities of 
Sicily she might have peace ; otherwise she must pre- 
pare for war. For, war Carthage was but ill prepared. 
The losses of the last campaign, and of the pestilence 
which had brought it to an end, had been terrible. 
Still it was impossible to accept the condition 
which had been offered, and the government prepared 
to resist. Of money, at least, they had an unfailing 
supply, and with money they could always purchase 
men. Some members of the council were at once 
sent off with large sums to hire mercenaries in 
Europe. 

Dionysius, probably without waiting for the return 
of his envoys, marched to the west of the island. 
His object of attack was Motya, the chief harbour and 
arsenal of Carthage in Sicily. He was joined on his 
way by the whole force of all the Greek cities, and his 
army numbered eighty thousand infantry and upwards 
of three thousand cavalry, while he had a fleet of two 
hundred ships co-operating with him. Motya was 
strongly situated on an island divided from the main- 
land by a channel six furlongs broad. This channel 



48 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



was ordinarily crossed by a mole. But the mole 
could be removed in time of necessity, and this was at 
once done. Dionysius, after reconnoitring the place in 
company with his engineers, set about a siege. The 
harbour and all the shore were blockaded, and the 
channel, or at least part of the channel, was filled up, 
so that the engines might be brought up to the walls 
of the city. On the other hand, Himilco, who had 
been put in command of the Carthaginian force, was 




THE WALL OF MOTYA. 



not idle. He sent ten ships from Carthage to Syra- 
cuse itself, and destroyed much of the shipping in the 
harbour. He then made a more formidable attack on 
the besieging force at Motya. Taking command in 
person of a squadron of a hundred ships he crossed by 
night from Carthage to Selinus, and sailing thence 
along the coast appeared at daybreak off Motya, sank 
or burnt the blockading squadron, and made his way 
into the harbour. The Greek ships were drawn up on 



MOTYA ASSAULTED. 49 

land, and Dionysius did not venture to launch them. 
The harbour was too narrow for him to use his numbers 
with advantage. But he constructed a road of planks 
across a neck of land which divided the harbour from 
the sea, and made his men drag his ships along this. 
When Himilco endeavoured to interrupt the work he 
was driven off with showers of missiles from the Syra- 
cusan force on land, and by the arrows discharged 
by the catapults. Catapults were a new invention at 
the time, and probably caused something of the con- 
sternation which is felt by savages at the first sight 
of firearms. Himilco, whose fleet was only half as 
strong as that opposed to him, did not venture to 
give battle, but returned to Carthage. 

The attempt at relief having thus failed, Dionysius 
pushed the siege vigorously. The walls were battered 
with the rams, while the catapults, with a constant 
discharge of arrows, drove the garrison from the walls. 
Towers were wheeled up against the fortifications. 
They had six stories, each of them filled with men, 
and were as high as the houses of the town. The 
people of Motya, on the other hand, defended them- 
selves vigorously. They raised great masts with yard- 
arms, from which men, protected from the missiles of 
the besiegers by breastworks, threw ignited torches 
and bundles of flax steeped in pitch on the engines 
that were being used against the walls. Some of these 
were set on fire, and the assailants had to turn their 
attention to extinguishing the flames. Still the attack 
went on, and before long the rams made a breach in the 
wall. A fierce battle followed. The Greeks burned 
to avenge the cruelties that had been done to their 



50 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

countrymen ; the Phoenicians, who could hope for no 
mercy, and who had no way of escape open to them 
either by sea or land, resisted with the courage of 
despair. When they had to give up the walls, they 
made barriers across the streets, and defended every 
house as if it had been a fort. The Greeks brought 
their siege-towers into the streets, and from them 
made their way into the upper stories of the houses. 
Still the people of Motya did not lose courage, but 
fought with a resolution which reminds us of the Jews 
when they defended Jerusalem against the Romans 
under Titus. The Greeks suffered heavily in this 
street fighting. Their opponents were utterly reckless 
of their lives, and they knew the place where they 
were fighting. At last a stratagem succeeded where 
force had failed. For several days the Greeks had 
retired from the conflict as evening approached, the 
signal for retreat being given by a trumpet, and the 
people of the town came to regard this as the regular 
course of things. But one night Dionysius sent a 
picked force to renew the attack after dark. This 
detachment established themselves in some of the 
houses before the besieged were aware of what had 
happened ; the rest of the army poured across the 
channel now filled up, and Motya was taken. One 
of the horrible massacres which make these wars so 
terrible followed. Dionysius tried in vain to stop it, 
not so much from any feeling of mercy, as because 
prisoners might be sold for slaves, and would bring in 
considerable sums of money. The soldiers paying no 
heed to his orders, he made proclamation that such of 
the inhabitants as still survived should take shelter in 



HIMILCO'S ADVANCE. 51 

the temples. This was effectual. The soldiers then 
began to plunder. This Dionysius did not attempt 
to hinder. Wishing to encourage his men for the 
campaign which lay before them, he gave up to them 
all the booty in the town. To the leader of the party 
which had surprised the town he made a present of 
about ;^400, and was liberal in his gifts to all who had 
distinguished themselves. 

Carthage meanwhile had been preparing a formid- 
able force with which to re-establish her dominion in 
Sicily. It amounted to one hundred thousand men, 
taking again, as being the most probable, the smallest 
estimate. Thirty thousand more joined it after it had 
landed in Sicily. Himilco was appointed to the 
command. Aware that Dionysius had his spies in 
Carthage, he gave to the captain of each transport 
sealed orders directing them to sail to Panormus. 
They were attacked on their way by a Syracusan 
squadron, which sank fifty of their number, and with 
them five thousand men and two hundred chariots. 
Himilco then came out with his war-ships, and the 
Syracusans retired. The Carthaginian general marched 
along the coast to Motya, and recovered it without 
any difficulty. Dionysius did not venture to attack 
him, but retired to Syracuse. 

Himilco now conceived a very bold scheme, 
nothing less than to make his way to Messana, in 
the extreme north-east of the island. It had an 
admirable harbour, capable of. holding all his ships, 
which numbered more than six hundred. It was near 
the mainland of Italy, from which he hoped to draw 
fresh forces, and it commanded the approach from 



52 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Greece. He marched along the north coast, his fleet 
accompanying him, and pitched his camp at Pelorum, 
the extreme north-eastern point of Sicily, which was 
about twelve miles from the city. The Messanians 
were struck with terror. Their walls were out of 
repair ; they had no allies at hand, and part of their 
own military force was absent at Syracuse. The 
first thing was to send away the women and children 
and the most precious of their possessions. Then they 
prepared for defence. Some were encouraged by 
remembering an old oracle, " The sons of Carthage 
shall bear water in the streets of Messana," which they 
took to mean that there should be Carthaginian slaves 
in their city. They sent a military force to the spot 
where Himilco was encamped, with instructions to 
resist any attempt to occupy the country. Himilco 
at once sent a squadron of two hundred ships to 
attack the town, which would now, he reckoned, be 
almost stripped of defenders. An opportune north 
wind carried the ships rapidly to their destination — 
more rapidly than the Messanian soldiers could follow 
them. Himilco's hopes were fulfilled. His ships 
landed the troops which they carried. These made 
their way into the city through the spaces in the 
walls, and the place was captured almost without a 
struggle. Some of the Messanians fell in a vain 
attempt at resistance ; many took refuge in the neigh- 
bouring forts ; two hundred and more had recourse to 
the desperate expedient of swimming the strait be- 
tween their city and Italy. Fifty succeeded in the 
attempt. Himilco, after trying in vain to capture the 
forts, marched on Syracuse. 



BATTLE OF CAT AN A. 53 

His first object was the city of Catana, which 
lay on the southern slopes of Mount ^tna. His 
original plan was to march his army along the coast, 
with the fleet keeping pace with it. But this plan 
could not be carried out. A severe eruption of yEtna 
took place at the very time of his march, and the 
stream of lava which poured down the eastern or sea- 
ward slopes of the mountain made it necessary for 
him to make a circuitous march round the western 
side. 

Dionysius at once took advantage of this division 
of the Carthaginian forces, resolving to attack the 
fleet while it was unsupported by the neighbourhood 
of the army. He marched with his own army along 
the sea-coast nearly as far as Catana, while Leptines, 
the Syracusan admiral, sailed alongside with the fleet. 
Mago, who was in command of the Carthaginian 
ships, felt at first no little dismay at the sight of the 
combined force which was coming to meet him. He 
had, however, no alternative but to fight ; and indeed 
his fleet was a very powerful one, numbering, along 
with the transport ships, which were furnished with 
brazen beaks for purposes of attack, as many as five 
hundred ships. The Syracusan admiral, who probably 
bore the character of being too adventurous, had been 
strictly ordered by Dionysius to keep his fleet in close 
order, and on no account to break the line. It was 
only thus that he could hope to hold his own against 
the superior numbers of the enemy. These orders 
he disregarded. Picking out thirty of his fastest 
sailers, he advanced far ahead of the rest of the fleet, 
and boldly attacked the Carthaginians. At first he 



5 1 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

was successful, sinking- many of his antagonists. 
But the numbers which were brought up against 
him were overwhelming. It became more and 
more difficult to manoeuvre ; at close quarters, when 
it was possible for the enemy to board, one ship, 
however skilfully commanded, was not much better 
than another. Before long Leptines was glad to 
escape to the open sea with such of the ships as 
were left to him. The rest of his fleet, who had 
thus lost the leadership of their admiral, and who 
came on in disorder, made but little resistance to the 
enemy. More than a hundred ships were taken or 
destroyed. Nor was the near neighbourhood of the 
army on shore of much service to those who tried to 
escape from the wrecks. The Carthaginians had 
manned a number of boats which intercepted the 
fugitives, and slaughtered them in the water before 
the eyes and within the hearing of their countrymen. 
More than twenty thousand men are said to have been 
lost by the Greeks in this battle. 

Dionysius was strongly urged to meet Himilco at 
once before the news of the disaster to the fleet had 
become known through Sicily. At first he was in- 
clined to follow the advice. But more cautious 
counsels prevailed, and he retreated on Syracuse. 
This was probably a mistake. Not only did he 
disgust many of his allies, but he lost an opportunity 
of inflicting a great blow on the enemy. Immediately 
after the battle bad weather came on, and the Cartha- 
ginian fleet could not keep the sea. Had the Greek 
army still occupied their position on the shore they 
misht have inflicted immense damaee on their 



SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 55 

opponents. As it was, Himilco came up with his 
army in time to assist his fleet. His own ships, and 
those which had been captured from the Greeks, were 
drawn up on the shore and repaired. The men had 
some days given them for rest and refreshment ; and 
he then marched on to Syracuse. Before starting for 
this last stage he sent envoys to the Httle town of 
^tna, where the Italian mercenaries of Dionysius 
were strongly posted, inviting these troops to change 
side and take service with himself They were 
strongly inclined to do so, but could not. They had 
given hostages to their master, and their best troops 
were actually serving in his army. They were thus 
compelled to refuse the offer, and Himilco was 
obliged to leave them in his rear. 

On arriving at Syracuse his first step was to make 
a great demonstration of force. He sailed into the 
Great Harbour with all his fleet. There were more 
than two hundred ships of war, which he had adorned 
with the spoils of those captured off Catana, and 
nearly two thousand others of all kinds and sizes. 
The harbour, though measuring more than a mile 
and a half one way and two miles and a half the 
other, was absolutely crowded with them. The army 
is said to have numbered three hundred thousand ; 
but this is doubtless an exaggeration. Altogether the 
display of force was overwhelming, and the Syracusans 
did not venture to show themselves outside either 
their harbour or their walls. 

The Carthaginian general prepared to blockade the 
city, building three forts, which he stored with wine 
and other provisions. His merchants were sent at 



56 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the same time to Sardinia and Africa to fetch new 
suppHes. Dionysius, on the other hand, sent to Greece 
and Southern Italy in the hope of collecting a force of 
volunteers and mercenaries. 

The tide of success now began to turn against 
Carthage. One of Himilco's corn-ships was approach- 
ing his camp when five of the Syracusan ships sallied 
forth from the Inner Harbour and captured it. The 
Carthaginians sent out a squadron of forty ships to 
drive off the assailants. On this the S}'racusans manned 
their whole fleet, attacked the hostile squadron, sink- 
ing twenty-four out of the forty, and capturing the 
admiral's ship. They then paraded their force in 
front of the Carthaginian position, and challenged the 
invaders to a general engagement. The challenge 
was not accepted. 

And now, for the third time, pestilence, the old ally 
of the Greeks, appeared to help them. Himilco had 
shown himself as careless of the religious feelings, not 
only of his foes, but also of his friends, as his prede- 
cessors had done. He had broken down the tombs 
outside the city to get materials for his forts, and he 
had robbed such temples as, being without the line of 
fortifications, had fallen into his hands. One specially 
rich and famous shrine had been thus treated, that of 
Demeter and Persephone.^ It was to this impiety 
that the disasters were generally attributed ; but the 
natural causes at work were sufficient to account for 
them. An enormous force was crowded together. 
It was the most unhealthy season of the year ; and 
the heat of the summer, that was now coming to an 

' Ceres and Proserpine. 



PLAGUE IN HIMILCO'S CAMP. 57 

end, had been unusually great. The plague that now 
broke out in the army seems, from the description 
that the historian gives of it, to have been much of 
the same type as the disease now known by that 
name. It began with swellings, and ended, after a 
most painful illness of five or six days, almost inva- 
riably in death. The danger or the fear of infection 
prevented due attention to the sick, or even the burial 
of the dead. We are told that as many as one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand corpses at one time lay 
rotting on the ground. The marvel is, if this or any- 
thing like this be true, not that so many died, but 
that so many survived. 

The Syracusans did not fail to take advantage of 
the distress of the invaders. Dionysius planned a 
simultaneous attack by sea and land. Leptines, with 
a Spartan officer, was put in command of a squadron 
of eighty ships, and Dionysius himself directed the 
movements of the troops. He marched out of the 
city at night, and delivered an unexpected attack 
about daybreak on the landward side of the Cartha- 
ginian camp. At first he suffered a reverse ; but this 
he had fully planned, for it enabled him to get rid of 
a body of disaffected mercenaries. Put in the front, 
and deserted by the troops which should have sup- 
ported them, they were cut to pieces by the Cartha- 
ginians. But when Dionysius advanced in force, 
these, in their turn, were driven back, and one of the 
forts was captured. Meanwhile the Syracusan ships 
attacked on the other side. The Carthaginian ships 
were but ill manned, a great part of their crews having 
doubtless perished in the plague. Anyhow they suf- 



58 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

fered a crushing defeat, and the army, weak itself, and 
distracted by the assailants on the other side, could 
give them no very effectual help. Many of the ships 
were deserted. To these the Greeks set fire. The 
flames spread from vessel to vessel till nearly the 
whole of the fleet, both war-ships and merchantmen, 
was in a blaze. They even spread to the camp, 
which itself was, at least in part, consumed. In short, 
the victory of the Syracusans was complete, and 
Dionysius encamped that night near the temple of 
Zeus, in which Himilco had lately had his head- 
quarters. 

Reduced to these straits, the Carthaginian general 
resolved to open communications with Dionysius 
personally, and without the knowledge of the people 
of Syracuse. He offered three hundred talents if he 
would allow him to remove to Africa what was left of 
his army. Dionysius replied that it would be quite 
impossible to conduct so extensive an operation as 
the removal of the whole of the army without excit- 
ing the suspicion of the people. But Himilco himself 
and the Carthaginian officers would be allowed to 
escape. He was not anxious to push the Cartha- 
ginians to extremities. Their friendship might be 
useful to him on some future occasion, for his own 
power was not very firmly established, and he had 
more than one proof of late that there was a strong 
party at work in Syracuse to overthrow it. Himilco 
accepted these terms. It was arranged that he and 
the other native Carthaginians should depart secretly 
on the fourth night following, and Dionysius led back 
his army to the city. The money was duly sent, and 



HIMILCO'S ESCAPE. 59 

at the time appointed, Himilco, with his officers and 
friends, and such of his troops as belonged to Car- 
thage, embarked. They filled, it is said, forty ships 
of war. Their escape did not pass unnoticed. News 
of what was going on was taken to Dionysius. As he 
seemed to be tardy in his movements, the Corinthian 
ships that were in harbour acted for themselves, pur- 
sued the fugitives, and captured some of the worst 
sailers in the squadron. 

The army that was thus shamefully abandoned by 
its general fared, perhaps, better than might have 
been expected. The native Sikels at once left the 
camp, and thus anticipating the attack of the Syra- 
cusans, reached their homes for the most part in 
safety. The Spaniards offered such a bold front to 
their enemies, that Dionysius was glad to take them 
into his own service. The rest of the arm}' surren- 
dered, and were sold as slaves. 

Himilco did not long escape the punishment which 
was due to his treachery and cowardice. All Carthage 
was plunged into mourning by the terrible disaster 
which had happened. Every house, every temple, 
was closed ; all rites of worship were stopped, and 
private business was suspended. The city crowded 
to meet the ships which were bringing back Himilco 
and his followers, and inquired the fate of friends 
and relatives. When the whole truth was known, a 
cry of wailing went up from the crowd. The general 
himself landed from his ship clad in the meanest 
garb. Stretching his hands to the sky, he bewailed 
aloud the disasters which had fallen on himself and on 
his country. The only consolation which he could 



6o THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

offer was that he had been conquered not by the 
enemy, but by the will of heaven. At the same time 
he publicly confessed his own impiety, and took 
the blame of what had happened on himself. After 
visiting every temple in the city with this confession 
on his lips, he went to his own house, blocked up his 
doors, and, refusing admission even to his own chil- 
dren, starved himself to death. 

The misfortunes of Carthage were not yet at an 
end. She had seemed to be on the point of subduing 
all Sicily, and indeed only one city remained to be 
taken ; and within a few months she had to fight for 
her own existence. Her African allies and subjects, 
with whom she seems to have been exceedingly un- 
popular, rose by one consent against her. An army 
numbering one hundred and twenty thousand was 
soon raised. They made their headquarters at Tunes, 
and for a while, so superior was their strength, kept 
the Carthaginians within their walls. For a time the 
city was in despair. Besides the visible dangers that 
threatened, the people dreaded the anger of heaven. 
Their general had grievously insulted the gods of 
Greece. He had made a dwelling-house of one temple 
at Syracuse, and had robbed another. The govern- 
ment at once set itself to calm these fears. The 
offended gods, especially Demeter and Persephone, 
who had never before been worshipped in Carthage, 
were propitiated by sacrifices in Greek fashion, which 
the handsomest youths of Greek race that could be 
found were appointed to perform. This done, they 
applied themselves to the business of defending the 
city. And indeed the danger was soon over. The 




VOTIVE KAS-KELIEF TO PERSEPHONE. 



CARTHAGE SAVED. 



63 



hosts that threatened them were nothing more than 
irregular levies, who could not agree among them- 
selves, and who had no leaders worthy of the name. 
Provisions soon failed them, for they had no ships, 
whereas the Carthaginians had command of the sea, 
and could import as much food as they wanted from 
Sardinia. Nor was it only in this way that their vast 
wealth served them. They used it also to buy off 
some of their most formidable enemies. In the course 
of a few months the great Libyan army broke up, 
and Carthage was safe. 




IV. 



THE LAST STRUGGLE WITH DIONYSIUS. 



The power of Carthage was now limited to a small 
region in the western part of the island. But she was 
not content to remain within these borders ; and she 
seized the first opportunity of seeking to extend 
them. Dionysius had set himself to reduce the native 
tribes — always hostile to the Greeks, and always 
ready to swell the forces of an invader. The Sikels 
(there were two tribes of the natives, Sikels and 
Sikanians) had established a new settlement at Tau- 
romenium. Dionysius did his utmost to capture this 
place, but was repulsed with much loss, and was him- 
self wounded. Some of the Greek cities now threw 
off their allegiance ; and the Sikels generally rose 
against him. The general in command of the Car- 
thaginian districts — Mago by name — who had been 
doing his best to make himself popular among sub- 
jects and neighbours, at once took the field, and 
ventured to march as far eastward as Messana. 
Dionysius encountered him on his way back, and after 
a fierce battle defeated him, Mago losing as many 
as 8000 in the struggle. Carthage, however, was now 
beginning to recover her strength ; and was resolved 
to make another effort to regain, at least, part of the 



MAGO DEFEATED. 65 

island. She drew from her usual recruiting grounds 
— Africa, Sardinia, and Italy — a force of 80,000 men, 
and sent it into Sicily, with Mago again in command. 
Mago marched through the country of the native 
tribes, calling them all to take up arms against 
Dionysius, but failed with one at least of the most 
powerful chiefs. Receiving this check he halted. 
Meanwhile, Dionysius had collected a force of 
20,000 ; with this he marched against the invaders, 
and making common cause with the Sikel chiefs, soon 
reduced them to extremities. The battle which Mago 
wished to force on him, and which some of his own 
followers desired, he declined. The Carthaginians, 
encamped as they were in their enemies' country, 
found their supplies fall short, and were obliged to 
sue for peace. It was granted ; but one of the condi- 
tions was that the Sikels, valuable allies in past time 
to Carthage, should now be subjects of Syracuse. So 
far the war ended in a distinct loss to the Phoenician 
power. 

The next war seems to have been provoked by 
Dionysius. His position at Syracuse was now firmly 
established, and his power had steadily increased. 
He was now desirous to consolidate it by finally 
expelling his remaining rivals from the island. The 
dependencies of Carthage were, as usual, disaffected. 
Dionysius listened to their complaints, encouraged 
them to revolt, and received them into alliance with 
himself Carthage sent embassies to complain of 
these proceedings, and receiving no redress, resolved 
upon war. Foreseeing that it would be a formidable 
undertaking, they made more than ordinary prepara- 



66 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

tions. Besides hiring, as usual, a large force of mer- 
cenaries, they also raised a body of troops of their 
own citizens, a most uncommon circumstance, and 
indicating their sense that it was a critical time to 
which they had come. The war seems to have been 
carried on — why and how we do not very clearly know 
— both in Italy and Sicily. Of the operations in Italy 
we know little or nothing. In Sicily two great battles 
were fought. The first was at Cabala. In this 
Dionysius inflicted a severe defeat on his opponents, 
killing, it is said, more than io,000, and taking as 
many as 5,000 prisoners. The survivors were com- 
pelled to take refuge on a height where there was 
no supply of water. Mago, the general, had fallen 
in the engagement. The Carthaginians began ne- 
gotiations for peace. Dionysius replied that he 
would grant it only on these conditions, that they 
should evacuate all the towns in Sicily, and should 
pay an indemnity for the expenses of the war. The 
terms seemed harsh beyond endurance ; but it was 
necessary to temporize. The generals in command 
replied that they were not competent to make so 
important a treaty on their own authority, especially 
as the surrender of Carthaginian towns was con- 
cerned. They must refer the matter to the autho- 
rities at home, and they begged for a few days' truce. 
This Dionysius readily granted. Meanwhile the Car- 
thaginians prepared for resistance. They gave a 
magnificent funeral to the remains of Mago, and 
appointed his son, a mere youth in years but singu- 
larly able and brave, to take the command. Every 
hour of the time was spent in drilling the troops and 



DEFEAT OF DIONYSIUS. 67 

making them ready to renew the war. When the 
truce expired, they marched out of their camp and 
offered battle to Dionysius. The engagement took 
place at Cronium, and ended in disaster to the Greeks. 
Dionysius commanded one wing, and his brother 
Leptines, of whom we have heard as admiral of the 
Syracusan fleet more than once before, led the other. 
Dionysius, who had the best troops of the army under 
him, was for a time successful ; Leptines was de- 
feated and slain. When his death became known 
throughout the army there was a general panic. The 
Carthaginians gave no quarter, and by the time that 
the darkness put an end to the pursuit, 14,000 Greeks, 
it is said, had perished. The Carthaginians, however, 
did not pursue their victory, but retired to Panormus. 
Anxious to secure what they could before fortune 
turned against them, they sent an embassy to Syra- 
cuse offering peace. Dionysius was glad to accept 
their terms. These were, that a thousand talents 
should be paid by way of indemnity, and that Car- 
thage should have, besides their own towns, Selinus 
and its territory, and all that had belonged to Agri- 
gentum west of the Halycus. 

This treaty was kept for fifteen years. Then Diony- 
sius saw another opportunity of attacking his old 
enemy. Carthage was again suffering from the evils 
which seem to have troubled her over and over again 
— pestilence, and revolt among her African subjects.^ 

' Eleven years before we hear a story of how the Carthaginians sent 
an expedition to Italy ; and how, after it had been brought to a success- 
ful end, a terrible plague broke out at home, so terrible that Carthage 
was likely to lose her dominions, both Africa and Sardinia revolting 



68 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

On the ground that the Carthaginians had trespassed 
beyond their boundaries, he marched into their terri- 
tory with an army of 38,000 infantry and 3,000 
horse. Selinus, Entellus, and Eryx, either were 
conquered or capitulated ; and he then laid siege to 
Lilybaeum, a flourishing port near the promontory of 
that name. At first he pressed the siege with vigour, 
but found that the place was too strongly garrisoned 
to be soon taken. Then came news that the docks 
at Carthage had been burnt. Thinking that all the 
enemy's fleet must have perished, he sent many of 
his own ships home, keeping a squadron of 130 at 
Eryx. The Carthaginians, who seem not to have 
suffered so much as had been thought, manned two 
hundred ships and sent them to Sicily. The Greek 
admiral was taken by surprise, and lost more than 
half his squadron. As winter was now approaching 
a truce was concluded. Before the time for another 
campaign had come, Dionysius was dead.^ 

against her. "At this time," says the historian Diodorus, "there 
fell on the Carthaginians many troubles by the ordering of the gods, 
strange terrors and unceasing panic fears, making men think that 
the enemy had entered into the city, so that they leapt armed out of 
their houses, and fell upon one another, slaying some and wounding 
some." 

' He died, it was said, from the effects of a banquet which he had 
given to celebrate the success of one of his tragedies in a competition at 
Athens. An oracle had told him that he should die when he got the 
better of them that were better than he. He had understood this to 
mean the Carthaginians, and, says the historian, somewhat absurdly, 
had always been careful not to push too far his victories over them. 
But the real meaning of the prophecy was quite different. He was a 
bad poet, and yet, by the verdict of flattering judges, was judged to be 
better than poets who were really better than he. When his tragedy 
was successful, the oracle was fulfilled, and he died. 



THE END OF THE WAR. 



69 



The war was not finished by his death, but nothing 
more of much consequence seems to have happened. 
About a year afterwards peace was concluded, and for 
the next twenty years the " story of Carthage " is 
almost a blank. 




V. 



CARTHAGE AND TTMOLEON. 



I SAID in my last chapter that for twenty years and 
more after the death of Dionysius the story of Car- 
thage is " almost a blank." We know, however, so 
much about her as to be sure that she was gaining 
strength in Sicily. The condition of the Greek cities 
in that island was going from bad to worse. Most of 
them had fallen into the hands of tyrants, and these 
tyrants were always intriguing or fighting against 
each other. Carthage all the while was steadily 
watching her opportunities and extending her power. 
In 344 she had become so dangerous that some 
Syracusan citizens, who had been banished by the 
younger Dionysius, son of the tyrant of that name of 
whom so much was said in the last chapter, resolved 
to call in the aid of Corinth. Corinth was the mother- 
city of Syracuse, I and the tie between the two had 
always been close. The Corinthians listened to their 
request, and, as it happened, had at hand just the 
man who was wanted. Timoleon was one of the best 
and noblest of their citizens ; but he was the most 
unhappy. He had had a terrible duty put upon him. 
A brother whom he had loved had tried to make 

' The founder and first colonists of Syracuse had come from Corinth. 



TIMOLEON DECLARES WAR AGAINST CARTHAGE. 71 

himself tyrant in Corinth, and Timoleon had ordered 
him to be put to death, or, as some say, had killed 
him with his own hand. After this dreadful act done 
to save his country, he had shut himself up in his 
house. When the Syracusan envoys came with their 
request, he was glad to go, and his countrymen were 
glad to send him. 

It was but a small force that Timoleon could get 
together for his enterprise — ten ships of war, and 
seven hundred mercenaries. The Carthaginians sent 
a squadron to intercept him. This he contrived to 
escape, and landed in Sicily. The tale of his wonder- 
ful achievements does not belong to my story. It 
must be enough to say that he gained possession 
of Syracuse, though one of his opponents had actually 
•introduced the Carthaginians into that city ; that he 
gave it free government, and that he did the same 
service to other Sicilian towns. To gain means for 
these enterprises he is said to have plundered the 
Carthaginian territory. -However this may be, we 
may be sure that Carthage would not look upon these 
proceedings with favour. War was declared before 
long, and the Carthaginians exerted themselves to 
the utmost to meet their new enemy. They collected 
an army of 70,000 (it may be noticed that the num- 
bers become smaller and more credible as we go on), 
well furnished with the artillery of the time, and 
supplied with abundance of provisions. As usual, 
this army consisted for the most part of mercenaries, 
but it contained also a numerous force — one historian 
puts it at ten thousand — of native Carthaginians. 
The fleet transported it safely to Lilybaeum, and it 



72 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

at once commenced its march eastward. Timoleon 
had but a small force with which to meet this great 
host. In Syracuse he could not raise more than three 
thousand ; of mercenary troops, after he had sent 
away a thousand laggards and cowards, he had about 
as many more. But he boldly marched out with his 
six thousand, and found the enemy encamped on the 
river Crimessus. 

It was nearly midsummer, and the heat of the sun 
had drawn up from the low ground near the river a 
thick fog. The Greeks could see nothing of the 
enemy's camp, but they could hear the confused hum 
of many voices rising up from it. As the sun grew 
stronger, the mist began to lift from the valley, though 
it still lingered on the hills ; and as it cleared away 
the river could be seen, and the great Carthaginian 
army in the very act of crossing it, with the four-horse 
chariots in front, and after them a solid body of 
infantry, ten thousand in number, splendidly armed 
and bearing white shields. These were the native 
Carthaginians, and their march was orderly and slow. 
After them came the mixed crowd of hired troops, 
disorderly and unruly, struggling who should first 
cross the river. Timoleon saw his opportunity, while 
the army of the enemy was still divided, some being 
actually in the river, and some on the further shore. 
The native Carthaginians were just struggling up the 
bank and forming themselves in line, when the Greek 
cavalry fell upon them. At first charge after charge 
was made in vain. The chariots of the enemy were 
driven furiously backwards and forwards in front of 
the army, and the Greek horsemen had to do their 



BATTLE OF THE CRIMESSUS. 73 

very best to prevent their own lines being broken by 
them ; on the lines of the enemy they could make 
no impression. Timoleon, who had about him a 
small force of Syracusans and picked mercenaries, 
came up to the help of his cavalry. They were no 
longer, he said, to attack the front line of the enemy^ 
that with that he would himself engage — but were to 
fall upon the flanks. Putting his men into as compact 
a body as possible, something, we may guess, like the 
phalanx with which the Macedonians won so many 
victories, he charged the enemy. But even he for 
a time could do nothing. The iron breastplates, the 
helmets of brass, the great shields which covered 
almost the whole of the body, resisted the Greek 
spears. At this moment fortune, or, as the Greeks 
would have said, Zeus the cloud-compeller, helped 
him. Suddenly a storm, with loud peals of thunder 
and vivid flashes of lightning, burst from the hills. 
The mist, which had been hanging about the heights, 
came down again upon the plain, and brought with it 
a tempest of rain and wind and hail. The Greeks 
only felt them behind ; the Carthaginians had them 
dashing in their faces ; the rain and hail and lightning 
blinded them ; the thunder would not allow them to 
hear the words of command. Then the ground grew 
slippery beneath their feet ; and the heavy armour 
became a hindrance rather than a protection. They 
could hardly move from place to place ; they found it 
difficult to stand ; when once they had fallen it was 
impossible to rise. Then came a new trouble. The 
river, partly swollen by the rain, partly, it is said, 
dammed back by the multitude of troops that were 



74 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

crossing it, overflowed i banks, and the heavy-armed 
Carthaginians stumbled and rolled about in the water. 
First the front line was cut to pieces ; then the whole 
vanguard was broken ; finally the army gave way. 
Many were cut down in the plain, many drowned in 
the river, and yet more intercepted by the light troops 
as they were attempting to reach the hills. Ten 
thousand lay dead upon the field, and of these no less 
than three thousand were Carthaginian citizens. The 
city had never suffered such a loss before. It was 
not now Africans or Spaniards, but her own children 
for whom she had to mourn. 

Even after this crushing defeat the war was not at 
an end. The Greeks were, as usual, divided among 
themselves ; and the enemies of Timoleon invited 
Carthage to continue the war, and promised their 
own help. Another battle was fought, and with the 
same result. Then Carthage asked for peace. It was 
granted on the condition that she should keep herself 
to the western side of the Halycus, and that she 
should not pretend to interfere with the government 
of the Sicilian cities. 



VI. 

CARTflAGE AND AGATHOCLES. 

TiMOLEON died in 337 ; for twenty years and more 
there was peace in Sicily ; then the Greeks fell out 
among themselves. Carthage was called in to help 
one of the parties. Timoleon had restored Syracuse 
to freedom ; but it had fallen again into the hands of 
a tyrant, Agathocles. Thousands of the citizens had 
been banished by the usurper ; and these, under the 
leadership of a certain Deinocrates, made a treaty 
with Carthage. In 309 a powerful expedition set 
sail for Sicily. There was a contingent of native 
Carthaginians numbering two thousand, among whom 
were some of the noblest-born of the citizens, African 
and Italian mercenaries, and a thousand shngers from 
the Balearic Islands. Its start was unlucky. A great 
storm sank sixty of the ships of war, and more than 
two hundred transports, and the rest of the fleet 
reached Sicily in a sadly battered condition. It was 
easy, however, to find recruits in the island, and 
Hamilcar. who was in command, had soon under 
him an army of 40,000 infantry and 5,000 horse. 
Agathocles met him at a place famous in the history 
of Sicilian wars, the river Himera. The battle thai 
followed began we.'l for the Greeks Some troops 



76 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

which Agathocles had put in ambush near the 
river fell upon a Carthaginian detachment as it was 
crossing the stream, laden with plunder, and drove 
them in confusion to their camp. Their commander 
thought it a good opportunity for a general attack. 
At first everything went well ; the Greek army 
assaulted the Carthaginian camp, and at one time 
seemed likely to take it. Then the fortune of the 
day changed. The Balearic slingers were brought 
into action, and killed and wounded many of the 
assailants. These still kept up the attack, but at this 
moment appeared a fresh squadron from Africa, and 
took them in the rear. The defenders of the camp 
took fresh courage ; the attack was finally repulsed, 
and soon changed into a rout. Five miles of level 
ground lay between the two camps ; the Carthaginian 
cavalry could act on this with freedom, and they 
made dreadful havoc among the fugitives. Another 
cause, and this a strange one, increased the Greek 
loss. The battle was fought in the heat of summer 
and at midday. Many of the fugitives had made for 
the river rather than for their camp, and they reached 
it in a state of raging thirst. The water was salt, or 
at least strongly brackish, but they drank greedily 
of it, and with fatal results. Many unwounded 
corpses were found upon the banks. The total loss 
of the Greeks was seven thousand, that of the Cartha- 
ginians not more than five hundred. Agathocles shut 
himself up in Gela, hoping thus to divert Hamilcar's 
attention from Syracuse, where the people would then 
gain time to gather in their harvests. The Cartha- 
ginian general began the siege, but seeing that he had 



AGATHOCLES IN EXTREMITIES. yy 

little chance of taking the place, soon changed his 
plan. His first step was to win over the other Greek 
cities by kind treatment and liberal offers. Many of 
them joined him ; their own danger was imminent, 
and they hated Agathocles. 

Reduced to the last extremity, for nearly all Sicily, 
with the exception of Syracuse, was lost to him, this 
extraordinary man conceived one of the boldest 
devices which history records. He determined to 
transfer the war to Carthage itself. That city, he 
knew, was not prepared for an attack, and its African 
subjects were always ill-affected, and he believed, and 
rightly believed, that it could be best attacked. This 
scheme he kept a profound secret. The measures 
that he took for carrying it out were most skilful, 
and, it must be added, most unprincipled. He began 
by choosing the force which he was to take with him 
most carefully. The greater part of it was cavalry. 
Horses he had no means of transporting to Africa, 
but he hoped to find them there, and the men were 
ordered to furnish themselves with bridles and saddles. 
He had to guard against a revolution in Syracuse 
during his absence ; and he was careful to take 
hostage for good behaviour from all the most power- 
ful families in the city ; putting one brother, for 
instance, in the garrison, and enlisting another in his 
own army. Then he wanted money. He gave notice 
that any citizen who might be unwilling or unable to 
endure the hardships of a siege was at liberty to 
depart. The offer was accepted by numbers of the 
rich. They had the means of living elsewhere, and 
they hated the rule of the tyrant. They were accord- 



yS THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

ingly permitted to depart, and to take their property 
with them. But Agathocles sent some of his mer- 
cenaries after them. The unhappy men were robbed 
and murdered, and the tyrant found himself amply 
provided with means. 

He then embarked his force, which filled sixty 
ships of war. The first necessity was to avoid the 
blockading squadron, which was much stronger than 
his own. Just at the right time a fleet of corn-ships 
appeared ofif the harbour. The Carthaginians left 
their post to pursue them, and Agathocles took the 
opportunity to get out of the harbour. For a time 
the Carthaginian admiral expected an attack, thinking 
that the Syracusan fleet had come out to fight for the 
corn-ships ; then seeing that it was sailing in the other 
direction, he gave chase. The result was a double 
success to Agathocles. The corn-ships got safely into 
harbour, and relieved the city, which was already 
beginning to suffer from scarcity ; and the squadron, 
which had got a considerable start, escaped. The 
escape, indeed, was a narrow one. The race lasted for 
five days and nights. On the morning of the sixth 
day the Carthaginian fleet unexpectedly appeared close 
at hand. Both sides strained every nerve ; but the 
Greeks won the race. They reached the land first, 
but the foremost of the Carthaginian ships were close 
upon them. In the skirmish that followed these were 
too weak to act with any effect, and Agathocles not 
only landed in safety, but was able to fortify a camp; 
close to which he beached his ships. 

But he had in his mind a yet bolder stroke. He 
burnt his ships. Forced thus to give up all hope of 



AGATHOCLES INVADES AFRICA. 8l 

escape, the army must now conquer or perish. At 
fiist they were in despair; but Agathocles did not 
give them much time to think about their situation. 
He led them to attack a district in which the 
wealthiest citizens of Carthage had their farms and 
country houses. It was a region of rich pastures, of 
oliveyards and vineyards, and the Sicilians were 
astonished at the plenty which they saw. Two towns 
fell easily into their hands, and their despair was soon 
changed into confidence. At Carthage there was the 
utmost dismay. It was commonly believed that the 
whole force in Sicily had perished, for no one could 
suppose that Agathocles could have ventured to leave 
Syracuse in danger and attack Africa. Some were 
for treating for-peace; others advised delay till the 
truth could be found out. When news of what had 
really happened arrived, they were, of course, greatly 
encouraged, and prepared to attack the invaders. 

In the first battle that took place, it is interest- 
ing to see the list of combatants on either side, 
Agathocles, besides his own Syracusans, had Sam- 
nites, Etruscans, and Celts (probably Gauls) in his 
army. The whole amounted to about eleven thou- 
sand, but many of them were insufficiently armed. 
There was no little discouragement among them,- 
and the result seemed doubtful. The day, indeed, 
might have gone in favour of Carthage but for 

^ A strange story is told of the device by which Agathocles endea- 
voured to give confidence to his men He had a number of tame owls 
which he let loose in the court. The birds settled on the shields and 
helmets of the soldiers. The owl was the sacred bird of Athene 
(Minerva), and the soldiers looked upon this incident as a proof of the 
goddess' favour. 



82 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the misfortune of the death of one of her generals, 
and the treachery of another. The two Suffetes 
of the year were Hanno and Bomilcar. Hanno 
was in command of the Sacred Band of native 
Carthaginians. Eager to break the opposing Hne, 
where Agathocles himself was in command, he 
exposed himself too rashly, and was killed. Bomil- 
car had designs of making himself a tyrant in 
Carthage, and felt that the defeat of the invaders 
would not help him in his object. He seems even 
to have had a treacherous understanding with the 
enemy. To his own officers he pretended that the 
death of his colleague made it necessary to retreat. 
The Carthaginian mercenaries soon took to flight ; 
the Sacred Host held its ground for a long time, but 
was at last compelled to retreat. The camp fell into 
the hands of the Greeks. 

Agathocles continued his successes, and carried 
the war almost up to the walls of Carthage. Mean- 
while things had been going well with him at Syracuse. 
Hamilcar had made a night attack upon the city, had 
failed, and had been taken prisoner. His head was 
cut off, and sent to Agathocles in Africa. Carthage 
suffered defeat after defeat in a series of battles, which 
it would be tedious to relate. At last the people 
found out one cause, at least, of their ill-fortune. 
Bomilcar had all along been playing the part of 
a traitor. He now thought that the time was come 
for seizing the prize of absolute power which he had 
always had in view. He ordered a review of the 
troops in the city, When it had been held, he dis- 
missed all that were not pledged to support him. 



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REVOLT OF BOMILCAR. 85 

Keeping the remainder, five hundred native Carthagi- 
nians and five thousand mercenaries, he proclaimed 
himself king, and commenced a massacre of all his 
opponents. If Agathocles outside the walls had known 
of what was going on, and had arranged an attack 
for the same time, Carthage was lost. The battle in 
the streets raged fiercely. Bomilcar and his adherents 
forced their way into the market-place. But the place 
could not be held. It was surrounded on all sides by 
lofty houses, which were occupied by the friends of 
the government, and from which showers of javelins 
were discharged on the revolters. Bomilcar was 
compelled to retreat into the New City. Finally a 
truce was agreed to. An amnesty was promised, and 
the rebels laid down their arms. But Bomilcar was 
too dangerous a person, and had done too much harm, 
to be allowed to escape. The rulers of Carthage, 
never much troubled by scruples, moral or religious, 
broke their oath and crucified him. The tide of 
success did not turn at once. Agathocles took 
Utica,! the largest of the Phoenician cities in Africa 
after Carthage, and a number of other towns, till 
Carthage was almost stripped of allies and subjects. 

Agathocles was now recalled by urgent affairs tc 
Syracuse. He left his son Archagathus in command 
of the African army. Archagathus was too ambitious, 
and undertook enterprises, especially against the 

* Another strange story is told of the device which he used in 
approaching this city. He had captured three hundred of the chief 
citizens. These he suspended alive on a tower which he brought up 
close to the gates, and which he had filled with archers and slingers. 
The defenders of Utica could not defend themselves against this attack 
without wounding or killing their own countrymen. 



5b THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

wandering tribes of the interior, for which his strength 
was not sufficient. Carthage, on the other hand, was 
now under wiser rule. The army was divided into 
three corps, each of which carried on separate opera- 
tions against the invaders. Archagathus suffered a 
great defeat under the walls of the city, and was also 
weakened by the revolt of many of his allies. His 
father now returned from Sicily, and for a time re- 
stored the balance. But an attack on the Carthaginian 
camp proved to be a failure. Then occurred a strange 
succession of changes of fortune. The Carthaginians, 
in celebrating their last victory after their own hideous 
fashion with human sacrifice, set fire to their camp. 
When the confusion was at its highest, some African 
mercenaries, who had taken service with Agathocles, 
deserted to the Carthaginians. Their approach was 
taken as an hostile attack, and a general panic followed. 
When the mistake was discovered, some were ad- 
mitted into the city, and there made the very same 
panic among the Greeks which they had just made 
among the Carthaginians. Agathocles lost more 
than four thousand men through this mishap. His 
African allies now left him, and he began to despair 
of success. He had no hope of being able to get terms 
from the enemy, and no means of carrying away his 
army. His plan was to depart secretly, taking the 
younger of his two sons with him. But Archagathus 
the elder discovered the scheme, and revealed it to 
the army. The soldiers, furious at the thought of being 
thus deserted, mutinied, seized Agathocles and put him 
in chains. Everything was now in disorder. Finally, 
Agathocles contrived to escape from confinement, and 




5 -si .. 
3 a fe irH K 



PYRRHUS. 89 

to make his way to Sicily. The army being thus 
abandoned, revenged itself by murdering his sons, and 
then made peace with Carthage. They gave up all the 
towns which they had captured, and received three 
hundred talents, a free passage for such as wished to 
go, and service in the army of Carthage for such as 
preferred to remain. The city had been besieged for 
four years. It was now safe, and, indeed, seems to 
have soon recovered her old strength. A few years 
afterwards we find her helping her old enemy 
Agathocles — in return, no doubt, for substantial 
advantages — to make himself supreme over Sicily. 

The last Greek antagonist with whom Carthage 
had to deal might well have been the most formidable 
of all. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus,i was of the kindred of 
Alexander the Great, through Alexander's mother, 
Olympias. He had conceived a scheme of conquest 
which should be like that achieved by his famous 
kinsman. But as Alexander had gone eastward, so 
he would go westward. His famous conversation with 
his philosophical adviser will show us what were his 
plans, and I will give it, as Plutarch tells it, in dialogue 
form : 

CiNEAS. The Romans, my lord Pyrrhus, are said to 
be great warriors, and to rule over many nations. If, 
by the favour of God, we conquer them, what use shall 
we make of our victory ? 

Pyrrhus. That is an easy question to answer. 
There will be no city, Greek or barbarian, that, if 
Rome be once conquered, will be able to withstand 
us. We shall certainly gain the whole of Italy, of 

' The modern Albania. 



90 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the greatness, excellence, and wealth of which you, of 
all men, cannot be ignorant. 

CiNEAS (after a brief silence). After gaining Italy, 
what shall we do next .-* 

Pyrrhus (not yet seeing his drift). Close to Italy 
is Sicily, stretching out her hands to us, a wealthy 
island and .a populous, and easy to subdue. Since 
the death of Agathocles it has been all confusion, for 
lack of government in the city and the folly of them 
that lead the people. 

CiNEAS. That is like enough. When we have con- 
quered Sicily, shall we come to an end of our wars ? 

Pyrrhus. Heaven prosper our undertakings so far ! 
Well, then, who would not go on to Africa and Car- 
thage, Carthage which will then be in my grasp ? 
Did not Agathocles, though he had to run away, so 
to speak, from Syracuse, with only a handful of ships, 
come very near to taking it .'' 

We are not concerned just now with the rest of the 
conversation, or with the moral which Cineas drew from 
it.'^ It was a splendid plan, and Pyrrhus was one who 
had all the genius that was wanted to carry it out. 
Hannibal, no mean judge in such a matter, thought 
him the greatest general ^ that had ever lived. But 
the beginning of his great enterprise was the hardest 
part of it — too hard, indeed, for him to accomplish, 

' Briefly it was this : " Master of Carthage," said Pyrrhus, " I shall 
come and make myself lord of Greece." " Doubtless," said Cineas; 
" and what then ? " " Then," answered the king, with a laugh, " then 
we will sit down and enjoy ourselves." " Why not sit down NOW ? ' 
was the philosopher's reply. 

^ Another version of the story puts Alexander first and Pyrrhus 
second. 



PYRRHUS LEAVES SICILY. 9T 

He spent his strength in vain on Rome. He defeated 
her armies, but he could not conquer her. Rome, we 
may say, saved Carthage from conquest. These two 
were to fight for the mastery of the West. 

His own deahngs with Carthage may be briefly 
told. After two campaigns in Italy, in which he had 
won much glory but little else, he passed over into 
Sicily in the spring of 278. The Greek cities had 
invited him to come ; they wanted him to help them 
against their old enemy Carthage. At first he carried 
everything before him, but Carthage offered him a 
large sum of money and a fleet which should co- 
operate with him in his enterprises. He refused these 
terms. Nothing, he said, would satisfy him — and we 
cannot but admire his fine feeling for the honour of 
the Greek name — but that Carthage should quit the 
island altogether and make the sea the boundary 
between Greece and herself Aftec this his good 
fortune left him. The Greeks grew weary of ih -ir ally. 
They plotted against him, and he retaliated with 
severities which made them hate him still more. 
Then he failed in an attempt to storm the fortress of 
Lilybaeum ; and even his reputation as a soldier was 
damaged. At last there was nothing left for him but 
to go. " How fair a wrestling ring," he said, as he 
looked back from his ship upon the island ; " how fair 
a wrestling ring, my friends, are we leaving to Rome 
and Carthage ! " In the fourth part of my story I 
shall tell the tale of this wrestling match. 



PART III. 
THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF CARTHAGE. 

I. — Carthaginian Discoverers. 
II. — Constitution and Religion of Carthage. 
III. — Revenue and Trade of Carthage. 



CARTHAGINIAN DISCOVERERS. 

The " Story of Carthage " is mainly a story of war. 
Of the people themselves and of their life we hear very 
little indeed, and that little either from enemies or 
strangers. But there are some exceptions, and of 
them the most interesting is the account of the voyage 
of colonization and discovery made by Hanno, an 
account which has been preserved ; not indeed in his 
own language — for of the Carthaginian tongue we have 
but a few words remaining — but in a Greek translation. 
The date of Hanno is not certain. He is supposed to 
have been either the father or the son of the Hamilcar 
who fell at Himera. There is little to make the one 
supposition more probable than the other. On the 
whole, I am inclined to accept the earlier time. Car- 
thage was certainly more prosperous, and therefore 
more likely to send out such an expedition before the 
disaster of Himera than after it. In this case the 
date may be put as 520 B.C. Hanno's account of 
his voyage is interesting enough to be given in full. 
I shall add a few notes on points that seem to require 
explanation. 

" It was decreed bv the Carthaginians that Hanno 



g6 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

should sail I beyond the Pillars of Hercules ^ and 
found' cities of the L:b , -Phenicians.3 Accordingly 
he sailed with sixty ships of fifty oars each, and a 
multitude of men and women to the number of thirty 
thousand,"* and provisions and other equipment. 

" When we had set sail and passed the Pillars, after 
two days' voyage, we founded the first city and named 
it Thymiaterium. Below this city lay a great plain. 
Sailing thence westward we came to Soloeis,5 a 
promontory of Libya, thickly covered with trees. 
Here we built a temple to Poseidon ; 6 and pro- 
ceeded thence half-a-day's journey eastward, till we 
reached a lake lying not far from the sea, and 
filled with abundance of great reeds. Here were 
feeding elephants and a great number of other wild 
animals. 

"After we had gone a day's sail beyond the lakes we 
founded cities near to the sea, of which the names 
were the Fort of Caricon, Gytta, Acra, Melita, and . 
Arambys. Sailing thence we came to Lixus,7 a 

' The history of the voyage is called Periplus or "Circumnavigation." 
The Greek narrative exists in a MS. in the Library of Heidelberg, and 
was first published in 1533. 

^ The Straits of Gibraltar. 

3 A mixed population springing from marriages of Carthaginians 
with native Africans, and regarded withmuch jealousy by the authorities 
of Carthage. 

■* This number is probably exaggerated. It need not, however, be 
supposed that all the colonists were conveyed in the sixty ships. These 
were probably ships of war which convoyed a number of merchantmen, 
which discharged their cargoes of passengers as the various colonies were 
founded. 

5 Cape Cantin. 

^ The Latin Neptune, perhaps the Phoenician Dagon. 

7 The Wadi Draa. 



ALONG THE AFRICAN COAST. gj 

great river which flows from Libya. On its banks 
the Lixitae, a wandering tribe, were feeding their 
flocks. With these we made friendship, and remained 
among them certain days. Beyond these dwell the 
Inhospitable Ethiopians, inhabiting a country that 
abounds in wild beat^ts and is divided by high moun- 
tains, from which mountains flows, it is said, the river 
Lixus. About these mountains dwell the Troglodyt.x, 
men of strange aspect.^ Of these the Lixita; said 
that they could run swifter than horses. Having pro- 
cured interpreters from these same Lixitse, we coasted 
for two days along an uninhabited country, going 
southwards. Thence again we sailed a day's journey 
eastward. Here in the recess of a certain bay we 
found a small island, about five furlongs in circum- 
ference. In this we made a settlement, and called its 
name Cerne.^ We judged from our voyage that 
this place lay right opposite to Carthage,3 for the 
voyage from Carthage to the Pillars was equal to the 
voyage from the Pillars to Cerne, After this, sailing 
up a great river which is called Chretes,^ we came 

' Possibly negroes. 

^ Cerne is probably to be placed at the mouth of the Rio de Ouro. 
Some of the French charts give the name of Heme, which is said to 
resemble a name used by the natives. 

3 There is some doubt as to the meaning of this expression. Mr. 
Bunbury suggests that it may mean that the distance from Carthage to the 
Straitsof Gibraltar, and from the Straits again to Cerne being equal, these 
two would be the sides of an icosceles triangle, of which the base would be 
the line drawn between Carthage and Cerne. It must be remembered that 
the ancients had nothing like the correct notions which we have since been 
enabled to form of the relative positions of the various countries of the 
world. From Cerne Hanno made two voyages of discovery, which he 
now proceeds to describe. 

* The Senegal, which opens out into such an expanse near its mouth. 



98 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



to a lake, in which are three islands greater than 
Cerne. Proceeding thence a day's sail, we came to 
the furthest shore of the lake. Here it is overhung by 
great mountains, in which dwell savage men clothed 
with the skins of beasts. These drove us away, pelting 
us with stones, so that we could not land. Sailing 
thence, we came to another river, great and broad, and 
full of crocodiles and river-horses. Thence returning 
back we came again to Cerne ; and from Cerne we 
sailed again towards the south for twelve days, 




VOTIVE STELE FROM CARTHAGE (HIPPOPOTAMUS). 

coasting along the land. The whole of this land is 
inhabited by Ethiopians. These would not await our 
approach, but fled from us ; and their tongue could 
not be understood even by the Lixitze that were with 
us. On the last day, we came near to certain large 
mountains covered with trees, and the wood of these 
trees was sweet-scented and of divers colours. Sailing 
by these mountains for the space of two days, we came 

But there is a difficulty about the mountains, which it is not easy to 
identify with anything in the lower course of this river. 



GORILLAS. 99 

to a great opening of the sea; and on either side of 
this sea was a great plain, from which at night we saw 
fire arising in all directions. Here we watered, and 
afterwards sailed for five days, until we came to a 
great bay, which the interpreters told us was called the 
Western Horn.^ In this bay was a large island, and in 
this island a lake of salt v/ater, and again in this lake 
another island. Here we landed ; and in the daytime 
we could find nothing, but saw wood ashes ; but in the 
night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound 
of flutes and cymbals and drums and the noise of 
confused shouts. Great fear then came upon us, and the 
prophet bade us leave this place. We sailed therefore 
quickly thence, being much terrified ; and passing on 
for four days found at night a country full of fire. In 
the middle was a lofty fire, greater than all the rest, so 
that it seemed to touch the stars. When day came 
we found that this was a great mountain which they 
call the Chariot of the Gods.^ On the third day 
of our departure thence, having sailed by streams of 
fire, we came to a bay which is called the Southern 
Horn. 3 At the end of this bay lay an island like 
to that which has been before described. This island 
had a lake, and in this lake another island, full of 
savage people, of whom the greater part were women. 
Their bodies 'were covered with hair, and our inter- 
preters called them Gorillas. We pursued them, but 
the men we were not able to catch ; for being able to 
climb the precipices and defending themselves with 

' The Gulf of Bissagos. 

- Mt. Sagres. 

3 Sherboro' Island and Sound, a little distance south of Sierra Leone. 



lOO THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Stones, these all escaped. But we caught three 
women. But when these, biting and tearing those 
that led them, would not follow us, we slew them, 
and flaying off" their skins, carried these to Carthage. 
Further we did not sail, for our food failed us." 

This account was set, we are told, by Hanno on his 
return to Carthage in the temple of Chronos or Saturn 
— the same, as has been already said, as the Moloch 
of Scripture. 

The elder Pliny, after mentioning the voyage of 
Hanno, which he strangely enough supposes to have 
extended as far as the borders of Arabia, says, "At 
the same time Himilco was sent to discover the 
northern coasts of Europe." Unhappily, we possess no 
account of Himilco's voyage that can be compared to 
the "Circumnavigation" of Hanno. AH that we know 
of his narrative comes to us from Avienus, a very 
indifferent Latin poet, who wrote about geography 
towards the end of the fourth century of the Christian 
era. And what Avienus professes to quote from him 
has a very incredible look. It took him four 
months to sail from Carthage to a country which was 
probably Britain ; not, as we might suppose, on 
account of rough seas and stormy winds, but because 
there are no breezes to make a ship move, or because 
there were such quantities of seaweed that it was held 
by them as much as if it were passing through a wood. 
Perpetual fogs covered everything. Besides these 
difficulties the sailor had to steel himself against the 
terrible sight of strange sea-monsters with which these 
waters abounded. Avienus professes to have seen 
the narrative of Himilco, and to quote from it directly. 



A STRANGE TALE. lOI 

The ancients were not very scrupulous in such mat- 
ters, and it is just possible that Avienus took his 
information at second hand. It has been suggested 
that the Carthaginians, jealous about their trade and 
afraid that other dealers should meddle with their 
markets,^ instructed Himilco to write such an account 
of his voyage as would deter every one else from 
following in his steps. It is certainly not sluggish 
seas and winds not strong enough to move a ship 
which are the obstacles a traveller sailing north 
would chiefly have to dread. However this may be, 
Himilco the discoverer is little more than a name 
to us. 

' It may possibly have been one of the reasons why the Carthaginians 
were ready to attack the Phocseans at Alalia that these bold sailors had 
visited Tartessus (probably Gades), had made friends with its king, and 
so intruded into regions which the city of merchants considered to be 
its own. 




II. 

THE CONSTITUTION AND RELIGION OF CARTHAGE. 

We know something of the Constitution of Carthage, 
for Aristotle has given a chapter to the subject in his 
book bearing the title of " The Politics." This is 
itself a curious fact. The Greeks had but little esteem 
for any country besides their own — Egypt, from which 
they got most of their learning, perhaps excepted. 
And not only does he write at some length about it, 
but he praises it highly. He quotes and, on the whole, 
agrees with a general opinion that " in many respects 
it is superior to all others." And he gives very excel- 
lent reasons for this superiority. It is a sure proof, 
he thinks, " that a State is well ordered when the 
commons are steadily loyal to the constitution, when 
no civil conflict worth speaking of has arisen, and 
when no one has succeeded in making himself 
tyrant." 

Aristotle speaks of Carthage having " kings,," and 
this name as given to the chief magistrates of the 
city often occurs in history. But they were not kings 
in the common sense of the term. They did not 
resemble, for instance, the kings of the Eastern world, 
of Assyria, of Persia, or of Egypt. They are, indeed. 



MAGISTRATES OF CARTHAGE. 103 

expressly compared to the kings of Sparta ; and 
these, we know, had but very limited power, and 
were little more than high priests and permanent 
commanders-in-chief. One important difference be- 
tween the two constitutions was that, in Sparta, the 
dignity was hereditary in two families, while in Car- 
thage it was elective. " They must belong," he says, 
" to one of certain distinguished families, but they 
succeed to the throne by election, not by seniority," 
But it does not appear that this election was annual. 
On the contrary, once chosen they were chosen for 
life. These two magistrates were called by the Romans 
" Sufifetes," ^ a corruption of the word Shophetim, or 
"Judges." 

Next to the kings came the generals. The two 
offices might be held together, but they were often 
separate. A king did not command an army or a 
fleet unless he was specially appointed to the post. 
Sometimes a general, would be made king while he 
was absent on service. Hanno, who commanded the 
great exploring and colonizing expedition before 
described, is said to have been a king. 

Below these high officers of State came a legislative 
body which, to borrow a name made familiar both by 
ancient and by modern history, -we may call the 
Senate. In this Senate there were two bodies, the 
smaller ^ and more powerful being chosen out of the 
larger. Perhaps we may compare this Upper Council 

' Possibly " Suffetes " was a reminiscence of the Latin word siiffectus, 
which was used when a magistrate was elected to fill a vacancy occur- 
ring at some casual time. 

^ It consisted of a hundred members. 



I04 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

to the cabinet or ministry in the Constitutions of 
England and the United States of America. We are 
told that it was called into existence to meet the 
danger which sooner or later overtook most of the 
Republics of the ancient world. " When the House of 
Mago became dangerous to a free state, an hundred 
judges were chosen from the senators, who, upon the 
return of generals from the war, should demand an 
account of things transacted by them, that they being 
thereby kept in awe, should so bear themselves in their 
command in the war, as to have regard to the laws at 
home." The members of the Council seem to have 
been chosen by what are called Pentarchies, i.e., bodies 
of five, by the Greek writer. We do not know what 
these were, but we may guess that they were com- 
mittees that had the charge of various important 
parts of government, as finances, trade, military 
matters, police, etc. Whether they were divisions of 
the Council or the Senate ws cannot say. But 
one thing is certain, viz., that the Council was a re- 
markably unchanging body. It followed one line of 
policy, we may say for centuries, with extraordinary 
consistency, and this it could hardly have done 
except it had kept up the same character by renew- 
ing itself. It is clear that there were no regular 
changes of government, no passings of power such 
as we see in the United States from Republicans 
to Democrats, or in England from Liberals to Con- 
servatives. 

About the powers of the larger assembly or Senate 
we know nothing for certain. Probably it was legis- 
lative while the Council was executive. It was the 



ESTATES OF THE REALM IN CARTHAGE. 105 

Congress or Parliament, while the Council was the 
Ministry or Cabinet. 

Finally, there was a general assembly of the people. 
About this, too, we know very little. We may guess 
that its power was limited to approving or rejecting 
measures that were brought before it, all such 
measures being first considered in the Senate. In the 
same way the people had the right of approving or 
disapproving of appointments to offices. Aristotle 
evidently thought that they were in much the same 
position as the people at Sparta ; and of the people 
at Sparta we know that they had not much to do 
with the government of the country. 

These were the actual " estates of the realm " in 
Carthage — the Kings or Suffetes, the Senate with its 
two chambers, so to speak, and the Popular Assembly, 
It remains to ask, " Was there a nobility .'' " Probably 
there was, and probably it was something like that 
which exists in England. There were, indeed, no 
inherited titles, but still the same families remained 
powerful in the State. Probably they remained 
powerful as long as they remained rich. There was 
no bar of birth that prevented any one from be- 
coming a member of this nobility. Ability and 
wealth, perhaps either of these in a very marked 
degree, would pass any one into it. 

Aristotle says that the offices of State were unpaid. 
This does not of necessity imply that these were not 
lucrative. They would bring patronage and oppor- 
tunities of making money. He also says that the 
highest offices — and he names those of King and 
General — were put up for sale. Perhaps he means 



I06 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

that they were obtained by bribery, though this is 
not the natural interpretation of his words. As he 
says afterwards that one of the abuses of the Cartha- 
ginian Constitution was that several offices were held 
by one man, we may suppose that though nominally 
unpaid, they could be, and often were, made a source 
of profit. Probably the decay of Carthage was due 
to the corruption and greed of money, whicji are sure 
to be developed sooner or later in a wealthy State, 
Rome, when the virtue and patriotism of its citizens 
decayed, fell into the hands of a despotic ruler ; 
Carthage, following the same course of decay, fell 
under the domination of a kw wealthy citizens. 

One of the points of the resemblance which Aristotle 
sees between Carthage and Sparta was the practice of 
having Common Meals. But Sparta was a compara- 
tively small State. The actual number of citizens 
living at the capital, when we have deducted those 
who were under oi- above the military age, and who 
were therefore excused from the Common Meals, 
could not have much exceeded a thousand. Car- 
thage, on the other hand, was one of the most populous 
cities of the ancient world. When it was taken by the 
Romans, long after it had begun to decay, it contained 
seven hundred thousand inhabitants. How many of 
these were citizens we cannot conjecture ; but the 
number must have been too great to admit of a system 
of Common Meals. Probably these were limited to 
the ruling clas.s. Aristotle speaks of them as being 
held by the "clubs" or "companies." What Livy 
says quite agrees with this. Hannibal, then in exile, 
sent an emissary to stir up the war-party at Carthage 




VOTIVE STELE TO TANIT. 



yUSTICE AND RELIGION. T09 

to action. His coming and the message which he 
brought, was, we read, " debated first in societies and 
banquets, and afterwards in the Senate." And we 
find it stated by another historian that the Cartha- 
ginians transacted their State affairs by night, and 
in the evening and at night-time held their meetings 
and societies. Perhaps we may say that modern 
politics furnish an illustration in the " Caucus," a 
meeting of influential persons by which the action of 
the party is determined. 

Justice seems to have been administered, not by a 
general assembly of the people, as at Athens, but by 
special Courts. We know the name of one of these, 
" The Hundred and Four." ^ Possibly this may have 
been the title of the whole judicial body, and that this 
was divided into various Courts for the trial of dif- 
ferent kinds of cases. 

The Religion of Carthage was naturally in the main 
that of the great city from which it was founded. The 
supreme Deity was Baal Hammon, or Moloch. Dr. 
Davis — from whose excavations among the ruins of 
Carthage much has, of course, been learnt — tells us 
that he did not find a single votive tablet in which the 
name of this god did not appear. He was worshipped 
with the horrible human sacrifices of which we hear 
from time to time in Carthaginian history.^ These 

' Not to be confounded with the Council of the Hundred. 

^ When Carthage was besieged by Agathocles, a sacrifice of two 
hundred children belonging to the first families in the country was 
made to Moloch ; and three hundred men also voluntarily devoted 
themselves in the same way. We hear of these sacrifices as prevailing 
among the Canaanite, i.e. Phoenician, tribes whom the Israelites drove 
out of Palestine ; and special care was taken to forbid this particular 



no 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



dreadful practices caused the Greeks to identify him 
with Chronos or Saturn, who, in their own mythology, 
was said to have devoured his own children. 

Next in honour to Moloch was Melcart, the tutelary 
deity of Carthage, as he was of its mother-city, Tyre 




A STELE TO TAN IT. 

To the Greeks he was known as Hercules. His 

kind of rite. So we read in Lev. xviii. 21, "Thou shalt not let thy 
seed pass through the fire to Moloch." In spite of this prohibition 
the practice gained ground among the Israelites. Solomon built a 
temple to Moloch; and the reformer Josiah " defiiled the Valley of 
Hinnom that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through 
the fire to Moloch." 



i 




VOTIVE STELE TO TANIT FROM CARTHAGE. 



CARTHAGINIAN DEITIES, 



113 



Splendid temple at Tyre was one of the most famous 
in the world. Missions with gifts and offerings seem 
to have been regularly sent to it from Carthage. 
Neither there nor elsewhere does the god seem to 
have been represented in human form. Herodotus., 
who describes the Tyrian temple as an eye-witness, 
says nothing of any image, but describes, among the 
many rich offerings with which it was adorned, two 
pillars, one of pure gold, the other of emerald, shining 
with great brilliancy at night.' 





VOTIVE STELES FROM CARTHAGE. 



A sea-god, whom the Greeks naturally identified 
with their own Poseidon, and the Romans with Nep- 
tune, was worshipped at Carthage. He was the same 
probably as Dagon, the fish - god, whom we know 
to have been worshipped in the cities of the Philis- 
tines. Ashtaroth, the Greek form of whose name 
was Astarte, corresponded to Aphrodite or Venus. 
Her Carthaginian name was Tanit. Of another 
Carthaginian deity, known to the Greeks as Triton, 

' This was probably of green glass, which had long before been 
manufactured in Egypt, and was lighted from within. 



114 '^^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

we cannot recover the native name. As the Greek 
Triton was a god of the sea, possibly this was only 
another form of Dagon. We do not hear of any 
separate order of priests ; but we find kings and 
generals offering sacrifice — sometimes, as in the case 
of Hasdrubal at Himera,^ while battle was actually 
going on. 

' See p. 27. 




III. 



THE REVENUE AND TRADE OF CARTHAGE. 

The revenue of Carthage came from various sources 
which may be mentioned in order. 

I. Tribute from subject or dependent countries. The 
Phoenician towns on the coast of Africa, both those 
which were older than Carthage and those which 
had been founded from it, paid tribute in money. 




CARTHAGINIAN COIN. 



Leptis, for instance, in the rich district of the Lesser 
Syrtis, is said to have paid as much as a talent per 
diem.' The tribes of the interior paid their tribute in 
kind, those who were settled and employed in culti- 
vating the ground furnishing corn, the wandering 
tribes such articles as dates, wild-beast skins, gold, 

' This would amount to ;^89,968 15s.. or nearly .-•450,000. 



ii6 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



precious stones, etc. The foreign possessions of the 
empire also paid in kind. Part of the stores which 
they thus furnished was laid up in the provinces 




CARTHAGINIAN COIN ELECTRUM 



themselves for the use of the army, and part was sent 
to Carthage. The amount of these contributions is not 
stated anywhere ; but it seems to have varied with 




CARTHAGINIAN COIN (SILVER 



the needs of the government, and sometimes to have 
amounted to as much as a half of the whole produce. 
2. Customs duties are mentioned in the treaties be- 
tween Carthage and Rome ; and the regulations about 



CARTHAGINIAN MINES. II7 

them are precise. In the treaties with the Etrurians, 
of which we hear from Aristotle, we learn that it was 
provided what articles might and what might not be 
imported. Hannibal, when in power at Carthage 
after the end of the Second Punic War, introduced a 
great reform into the management of the customs, 
which we learn from this passage to have been levied 
on goods imported both by land and by sea ; and is 
said, by putting a stop to dishonest practices, to have 
improved the revenue so much, that it was no longer 
necessary to tax individuals. That these duties were 
heavy, we may learn from the fact that smuggling 
went on between the Greek towns in the district 
round Cyrene and the towns dependent on Carthage. 
3. Mines. Carthage possessed mines in Spain and 
Corsica. The richest of these were in the neighbour- 
hood of New Carthage. In Polybius' time (204-122 
B.C.), when they were worked by the Romans, they 
produced about i^2,ooo per day. They are said to 
have been discovered by a certain Aletes, who was 
supposed to have done so much for his country by 
this discovery, that a temple was dedicated to himi at 
New Carthage. We must not suppose, however, that 
all the mines (Diodorus says that all the mines known 
in his time were first worked by the Carthaginians) 
belonged to the State. Many of them were worked 
by individual citizens to their great profit. The power- 
ful Barca family is said to have derived from their 
mines much of the wealth by which they were enabled 
to become so powerful, and Hannibal is specially 
mentioned as receiving a large income from mines. 
Probably the State w^as the owner of some, and re- 



Il8 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

ceived a royalty (or sum proportionate to the quan- 
tity of metal raised) from the others. 

The Commerce of Carthage may be conveniently 
considered under its two great branches — the trade 
with Africa, and the trade with Europe. 

I. The trade with Africa. This was carried on with 
the barbarous tribes of the inland country that could 
be reached by caravans, and of the sea-coast. Of 
both we hear something from Herodotus, the writer 
who furnishes us with most of our knowledge about 
these parts of the ancient world. His story about 
the dealings with the tribes of the sea-coast runs thus. 
" There is a certain country in Africa outside the 
columns of Hercules. When the Carthaginians come 
hither, they unlade their goods and set them in order 
by the side of the sea. This done, they embark on 
their ships again and make a smoke. And the people 
of the country, seeing the smoke, come down to the 
sea, and put gold beside the goods and depart to a 
distance. Then the Carthaginians come forth from 
their ships and look ; and if it seem to them that the 
gold is of equal value with the goods, they take it and 
depart ; but if it seem not equal, then they return to 
their ships and sit still. Then the barbarians come 
and add other gold to that which they put before, 
until they persuade the Carthaginians. And neither 
do any wrong to the other ; for the one touch not 
the gold till it be made equal in value to the goods, 
and the others touch not the goods before the sellers 
have received the gold." ^ The Caravan routes are 

' Heeren quotes from Captain Lynn's " Narrative " a curiously similar 
account. "In Soudan, beyond the desert, in the countries abound- 



TRADE. irg 

described in a very interesting passage. The starting- 
point is Thebes in Upper Egypt, where Herodotus 
probably got "his information ; and the route, in, which 
the stations — always places where water can be found 
— are given with much detail, extend to the Straits of 
Gibraltar in the west, and Fezzan, and probably still 
more inland places, in the south. 

The goods with which the Carthaginian merchants 
traded with the African tribes were doubtless such as 
those which civilized nations have always used in their 
dealings with savages. Cheap finery, gaudily coloured 
cloths, and arms of inferior quality, would probably be 
their staple. Salt, too, would be an important article. 
Many of the inland tribes can only get this necessary 
of life by importation, and the Carthaginians would 
doubtless find it worth their while to bring it, not 
necessarily from the sea, but from places on the route 
where, according to Herodotus, it could be found in 
large quantities. 

The articles which they would receive in exchange 
for their goods are easily enumerated. In the first 
place comes, as we have seen, gold. Carthage seems 
to have had always at hand an abundant supply of 
the precious metal for use, whether as money or as 
plate. Next to gold would come slaves. Even then 
the negro race was. the victim of the cruel system 
which has not yet quite been rooted out of the world, 

ing in gold, there dwells an invisible nation, who are said to trade only 
by night. Those who come to traffic for their gold, lay their merchan- 
dise ill heaps and retire. In the morning they find a certain quantity 
of gold-dust placed against every heap, which if they think sufficient, 
they leave the goods ; if not, they let both remain until more of the 
precious ore is added." 



120 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

though no Christian nation, at least ostensibly, prac- 
tises it. The ancients, indeed, had other slaves 
besides negroes. It was a horrible feature of the 
slavery of these times that, through the practice of 
selling, for private or public gain, prisoners of war and 
the inhabitants of captured towns, men and women of 
every race were reduced to bondage, and thus the 
slave might be as well born and as well educated as 
his master. I But these slaves were sure to be discon- 
tented, and very likely, therefore, to be dangerous, and 
the more gentle and docile negro soon came to be 
prized. Fashion, too, favoured the quaint appearance 
of the race, so curiously contrasted with the fair com- 
plexion and chiselled features of the Greek. Thus in 
Menander (342-291 B.C.), as he is represented to us by 
Terence, we find a soldier saying to his lady-love, 
" Did you ever find my good will to you halt ? When 
you said you wanted a handmaid from Ethiopia, did 
not I give up all my business, and find one for 
you ? " 

Ivory must have been another article of Cartha- 
ginian trade, though we hear little about it. The 
Greeks used it extensively in art, making some of 
their most magnificent statues partly of it and partly 
of gold ;2 and it seems to have been employed in early 

' One Latin writer draws a distinction between slaves that were 
" learned " and that "had a smattering of learning." All the early 
schoolmasters at Rome, almost without exception, had been slaves. 
The elder Cato made a profit of taking in noble Roman boys to be 
taught by an educated slave of his own. 

- The great statues of Phidias, viz., of Zeus at Olympia, of Here at 
Argos, and of Athene at Athens, were made of these two materials, 
. and therefore called chryselephantine. 



IVORY AND PRECIOUS STONES. 



121 



times at Rome for the chairs of state used by the 
higher magistrates. We do not precisely know where 
this ivory came from first. Virgil speaks of the sub- 
stance as coming from India, and the elder Pliny 
says that the luxury of his times had exhausted all the 
sources of supply except those of the farthest East. 
We may be certain, however, that in the flourishing 
days of Carthage her traders dealt largely in this 
article, which indeed is found of the largest size and 
finest quality in Africa. The elephant is still found 




VOTIVE STELE FROM CARTHAGE. 

over the whole of that continent south of the Sahara, 
except where it has been driven away by the neigh- 
bourhood of man. The Carthaginians had domesti- 
cated it, a thing which has never since been done by 
any African race. 

Precious stones seem to have been another article 
which the savages gave in exchange for the goods they 
coveted. The carbuncle, in particular, came in such 
abundance from Carthage into the markets of Europe 
that it was called the " Carthaginian Stone." Perhaps 



122 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

we may add dates to the list of articles obtained from 
the interior. 

The European trade dealt, of course, partly with 
the things already mentioned, and partly with other 
articles for which the Carthaginian merchants acted 
as carriers, so to speak, from one part of the Mediter- 
ranean to another. Lipara, and the other volcanic 
islands, near the southern extremity of Italy, pro- 
duced resin ; Agrigentum, and possibly other cities of 
Sicily, traded in sulphur brought down from the 
region of Etna ; wine was produced in many of the 
Mediterranean countries. Wax and honey were the 
staple goods of Corsica. Corsican slaves, too, were 
highly valued. The iron of Elba, the fruit and the 
cattle of the Balearic islands, and, to go further, the 
tin and copper of Britain, and even amber from 
the Baltic, were articles of Carthaginian commerce. 
Trade was carried on not only with the dwellers on 
the coast, but with inland tribes. Thus goods were 
transported across Spain to the interior of Gaul, the 
jealousy of Massilia (Marseilles) not permitting the 
Carthaginians to have any trading stations on the 
southern coast of that country. 

While we are writing of trade, we must not omit to 
mention a curious statement about what has been 
called the " leather money " of Carthage. The work 
f.om which it comes bears the name of ^schines, a 
disciple of Socrates. It is certainly not of his time, 
but it is probably ancient. " The Carthaginians," 
says this author, whoever he may have been, " make 
use of the following kind of money : in a small piece 
of leather a substance is wrapped of the size of a 



ART AND LITERATURE. 



123 



piece of four drachmae (about 3s.) ; 
but what this substance is no one 
knows except the maker. After 
this it is sealed and issued for 
circulation ; and he who possesses 
the most of this is regarded as 
having the most money, and as 
being the wealthiest man. But 
if any one among us had ever 
so much, he would be no richer 
than if he possessed a quantity 
of pebbles." This unknown sub- 
stance was probably an alloy of 
metal, of which the ingredients 
were a State secret ; and the seal 
was a State mark. We have, in 
fact, here a kind of clumsy bank- 
note. 

Of Carthaginian art and litera- 
ture there is little to be said. 
The genius of the Phoenicians did 
not lead them to distinguish them- 
selves in either way. As for art, 
whatever grace is to be found in 
the scanty remains that are left 
to us of Carthaginian civilization, 
is clearly due to Greek influence. 
The coins, for instance, that are 
figured on pp. 115, 116, are evi- 
dently the work of Greek artists. 
About Carthaginian literature we. 
cannot speak so positively. That 
there were libraries in the city 




m 

] '''I. I 

' n 



WRITING-CASE. 



124 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



when it was taken by the Romans, we know for 
certain, as we also know that the conquerors were 
not sufficiently aware of their value to keep them 
for themselves, but allowed them to be dispersed 
among the African princes. But whether these libra- 
ries contained a native Carthaginian literature, or 
were furnished with the production of Greek genius, 
we do not know. Of one Carthaginian work, in- 
deed, we know something. We have its subject, 
the name of its author, and, it may also be said, its 
opening sentence. It was a book on agriculture, 




VOTIVE STELE (rULI.). 



written by one Mago, and it began, it is said, with 
the remark that he who would make his farm 
prosper should sell his town-house. So high a 
reputation had it obtained, that when Carthage was 
taken, the Roman Senate appointed a committee to 
look after its translation into Latin. It was after- 
wards translated into Greek. Roman writers made 
much use of it, and Cicero speaks of it as the standard 
work on its subject. 

Of the domestic life of the Carthaginians we know 
almost nothing. Where there is great wealth there 



WEALTH AND LUXURY. I25 

is sure to be great luxury. Of this we get, indeed, 
a few hints from the historians. We have seen, 
for instance, how, when one of the Carthaginian 
generals were pressed for arrears of pay by his mer- 
cenaries, he was able to give them security in the 
rich gold and silver drinking-cups which belonged to 
the Carthaginians on his staff. And Athenaeus, a great 
collector of gossip on all such matters, tells us that 
Dionysius sold a splendid robe to a Carthaginian 
millionaire for a hundred and twenty talents — the 
almost incredible sum of nearly thirty thousand 
pounds. And it seems to have been also true that in 
Carthage, as elsewhere, " where wealth accumulates 
men decay." Political and military talent she could 
always command, but she trusted more and more to 
her mercenaries, to those " silver spears " which are 
sure, sooner or later, to break in the day of need. 




PART IV. 
CARTHAGE AND ROME. 



For the First and Second Punic Wars our chief authorities 
are Polybius and Livy. The first was a Greek, and a great 
Irieud of the younger Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage. He 
was present at the capture of that city, but unfortunately the 
part of his work which relates that event, and the history of 
the Third Punic War generally, is lost. For the First Punic 
War, which is the chief subject of the introductory chapters 
of his work, and for the Second, he is our best authority, so 
' far as he goes. Here, again, unfortunately, much is lost ; 
indeed, we have no complete book after the fifth, and this 
takes us a little farther than the battle of Cannae. Consider- 
able extracts have, however, been preserved of the lost books, 
among them one containing a description of the battle of 
Zama. Polybius was an admirable historian, painstaking and 
just in the highest degree. 

Livy (Titus Livius) lived in the last days of the Roman 
Republic and the first of the Empire, since he was born B.C. 
59, the very time of the first Triumvirate, and died in the 
fourth year of Tiberius. He vvrote a history of Rome in one 
hundred and forty-two books, of which thirty-five only sur- 
vive. Happily the ten books, twenty-one to thirty, which 
give a detailed account of the Second Punic War from the 
beginning to the end, have been preserved, and epitomes 
of the lost books exist, from which we get some valuable 
information about the First and Third wars. Livy is a 
great writer ; some excellent judges have even said that 
his style is the very best to be found among prose writers 
ancient or modern. It is certainly full of vigour and beauty ; 
but Livy is not a great historian. He was very careless, 
never taking the p.iins, so far as we can learn, to visit the 
scenes of the events which he describes, though they must 
often have been within his reach, or attempting to realize 
them to himself For the Third Punic War our chief authority 
is Appian, a native of Alexandria, who wrote there, in Greek, 
a Roman history, in which he treated the affairs of every 
country separately. 



I. 

THE WAR IN SICILY AND ON THE SEA. 

We have heard more than once of Campanians 
among the mercenaries who were accustomed to fight 
both for Greece and for Carthage in the Sicihan wars. 
They seem to have been particularly unscrupulous, 
for they would change sides when changing sides 
seemed likely to give them better pay or better 
prospects of victory. And this habit of .theirs agrees 
with the bad account we get of them m other ways. 
These Campanians let out their swords for hire, not 
so much because they were poor (as did the Arca- 
dians in ancient times, and the Swiss and Scotch in 
modern Europe), as because they liked the life of a 
soldier of fortune. They were the youth of a disso- 
lute people/ and, not able to find the career they 
liked at home, where they would have had to deal with 
the Romans, they sought it abroad, and, as we have 
seen, especially in Sicily. We shall not be surprised, 
therefore, to find some of these Campanians behaving 
in a most cruel and unscrupulous way to one of the 
Greek cities. After the death of Agathocles, who, 

' Capua, ihe chief city of Campania, had a very bad reputation in 
this way. 



130 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

tyrant as he was, was a man of energy, affairs in 
Sicily had fallen into a state of great confusion. 
Among other causes of trouble was a corJ>s of Cam- 
panian mercenaries, who had been in the service of 
the tyrant, and who, after his death, asserted their 
independence, and set up in the trade of brigands. 
They seized the city of Messana, slew or drove out 
the citizens, and divided among themselves everything 
that they possessed. For a time the Mamertines, or 
" Servants of Mars " ^ (for this was the name that the 
robbers had assumed), prospered greatly, spreading 
their power over the neighbouring portion of the 
island. Then came a check. Syracuse had again 
fallen into the hands of an able ruler, one Hiero, of 
whom we shall often hear again. Hiero reduced the 
Mamertines to great straits, and they looked about in 
despair for some one who could help them. 

There were two parties among them, one favouring 
Carthage, the other Rome. At first the latter pre- 
vailed. An embassy was sent, offering submission 
and begging for help. The request perplexed the 
Romans not a little. It was quite a new thing for 
them to look beyond the limits of Italy. There they 
were now supreme ; but they dreaded undertaking 
conquests outside it. And to grant this request would 
of course embroil them with Carthage. On the other 
hand, Carthage would become a dangerous enemy if 
it were allowed to possess itself of Messana. It 
would only have to conquer Syracuse to make itself 
master of Sicily. The Senate debated the question 
more than once without coming to any decision. 
' " Mamers " is an Italian form of " Mars." 



THE ROMANS GAIN MESSANA. 13I 

Besides their fear of a new enterprise, they had, we 
may hope, some scruple about taking to themselves 
such very discreditable allies. From the Senate the 
matter was referred to the people, and the people felt 
neither the fear nor the scruple, but resolved that help 
should be sent, and that the Mamertines should be 
received as allies. 

Meanwhile the other party at Messana had been 
busy. They applied for help to Carthage ; and Car- 
thage at once sent it. A peace was made with Hiero, 
who was besieging the city. A fleet sailed into the 
harbour, and a body of troops under Hanno occu- 
pied the citadel. When the Romans, who were under 
the command of Appius Claudius, one of the Consuls 
of the year, arrived, they found themselves anticipated. 
Unfortunately for Carthage, both the officers in charge 
of the fleet and Hanno were wanting in foresight or 
resolution. The former was seized at a meeting of 
the citizens to which he had gone in the hope of 
keeping the peace ; the latter consented to give up 
the citadel if he were permitted to withdraw with 
his garrison. Then the Romans became masters 
of Messana without having to strike a single blow 
for it. 

The Carthaginians were not disposed to accept 
this state of things. Hanno they crucified as having 
shown in his conduct neither courage nor good judg- 
ment. Then, in concert with Hiero, they closely in- 
vested the city. Claudius attempted to make terms ; 
he was even willing to depart, if the Mamertines 
might be allowed to remain. When these terms 
were rejected he resolved to act. He marched out of 



133 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the city and offered battle, Hiero accepted it, but 
after a long fight was driven back into his camp. The 
next day he returned to Syracuse. Appius followed 
up his victory, attacking and routing the Carthaginian 
army, which immediately raised the siege of the city. 
The next year a larger army was sent ; Hiero, who 
had the sagacity to see with whom the victory was most 
likely to be, submitted to Rome, becoming one of its 
most constant and useful allies Many other cities, 
both Sicilian and Carthaginian, followed this example. 
Carthage, on the other hand, increased her forces in 
the island, making Agrigentum the base of her 
operations and the place in which her military stores 
were kept. 

The next year the Romans besieged Agrigentum, 
and kept the garrison closely within the walls. After 
a blockade which lasted five months, Hannibal, one of 
the Suffetes, who was in command, found himself 
sorely pressed by famine, and sent urgent entreaties to 
Carthage for help. In answer to these requests, a con- 
siderable body of troops, with a number of elephants, 
was sent to Sicily. Hanno, who commanded the 
Carthaginian army in the field, was rendered superior 
in force to the Romans by this reinforcement. He 
cut off their supplies and reduced them to great 
straits. Indeed, but for the help of Hiero they could 
not have held out. Hanno now thought it time to 
attack the enemy. He sent on his African light- 
horse in advance, with orders to provoke the Roman 
cavalry to an engagement, and by retiring before them 
to draw them within reach of his whole army. The 
stratagem succeeded. The Romans sallied furiously 



CAPTURE OF AGRIGENTUM. 133 

from their camp, drove the Africans before them, and 
then, finding themselves in presence of Hanno'sarmy, 
were themselves driven back. 

For two months the two armies lay quiet, with a 
space of about a mile between them. Meanwhile the 
famJne in the city grew worse, and Hannibal, by fire 
signals from the city (for the Carthaginians seem to 
have had some system of telegraphing), and by mes- 
sengers, made his colleague aware that he could 
hold out no longer. The Romans were scarcely less 
in need, so that both parties were eager to fight. The 
battle that followed was long and obstinate. At last 
the Carthaginian mercenaries, who composed the front 
line, gave way, fell back upon the elephants behind 
them, and threw the whole army into disorder. Only 
a small part of the troops escaped. But Hannibal 
with the garrison of Agrigentum was more fortunate. 
Seeing that the Romans, rejoicing in their victory, 
were guarding their lines very carelessly, he made his 
way through undiscovered The next day the Romans 
marched into Agrigentum, where they found abun- 
dance of spoil and many prisoners of war. 

After this success the Romans began to think that 
then it was withm their power to make themselves 
masters of the island. But the great obstacle was 
that Carthage was still mistress of the sea, and that 
even their own coasts were not safe from the ravages 
of her fleet. If their hope was to be fulfilled they 
must have a fleet of their own. Ships of course they 
had, for the treaties • with Carthage, made hundreds 
of years before, had set limits beyond which they 
' See pp. 14- 16. 



134 ^^-^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

should not go ; possibly they had ships of war ; but 
they had nothing which they could match against the 
great five-banked vessels of the enemy. Fortunately 
one of these came into their possession, stranded by a 
storm or in an attack made upon their transports. 
This they used as a model for their shipbuilders. In 
the course of a few weeks, a hundred five-banked and 
twenty three banked vessels were built — of green wood, 
it is said, and not likely to last, but still sufficient for 
their purpose. 

The first attempt of the new force was not fortu- 
nate. A squadron of seventeen ships was taken at 
Lipara, with one of the consuls, who was in command. 
But the Carthaginians soon found that the Romans 
were quite as formidable by sea as by land. Their 
admiral, Hannibal, who was reconnoitring with fifty 
ships, fell in unexpectedly with a superior force of the 
Romans, lost the greater part of his fleet, and barely 
escaped himself Still, the greater experience of their 
seamen would have given them the advantage but for 
the device by which their enemies contrived to make 
a sea-fight very much like a fight on dry land. Every 
Roman ship was filled with a boarding apparatus. It 
was like a gangway, eighteen feet long and four feet 
broad, and was attached to a pillar of wood set up by 
the bowsprit, from which it was dropped when the 
two ships came in contact. The further end was 
furnished with a sharpened bar of iron, which was 
driven by the force of the fall into the enemy's deck 
and held it fast. If the ships were laid broadside to 
broadside, the boarders jumped from all parts of their 
own ship on to that of the enemy ; if prow only 




DUILIAN COLUMN. 



BATTLE OF MYLM. 137 

touched prow, they went two and two along the 
gangway. 

The new apparatus was soon brought into use. 
Hannibal (the same commander who had escaped 
from Agrigentum) encountered the Roman Consul 
Duilius, and despising his enemy, bore down upon him 
without taking the trouble to form his fleet in order. 
The front ships, as soon as they came near the 
Romans, were grappled by the new machines, and 
the boarding parties poured in from the Roman ves- 
sels. The Carthaginians were taken by surprise and 
overpowered, and lost all the thirty ships that com- 
posed the van. The rest of the fleet fared little better. 
Whenever they tried to approach, the grappling-irons 
hung over them. In the end they fled with the loss of 
fifty more ships ; Hannibal escaping in an open boat. 
This battle of Mylae was one of the turning points 
of the long struggle between the two powers. Car- 
thage had ruled the sea for centuries, and now it was 
beaten by a foe who had first taken to it only a few 
months before.^ 

It is needless to give all the details of the long 
struggle that followed. Hannibal met with his end 
in the year of his defeat at Mylae. He had sailed to 
Sardinia, and was there surprised by the Roman fleet, 
losing many of his ships. As usual he escaped, but 
this time in vain. He was seized by the survivors and 
crucified. 

' Duilius received high honours at Rome, a triumph, a cohimn adorned 
with the beaks of the captured vessels, and the singular privilege of 
being accompanied by a torch-bearer and a flute-player when he was 
coming home from dinner at night. 



138 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

The next two years the war dragged on in Sicily 
without any decisive event, though the advantage was 
for the most part with Rome. But in 256 a great 
battle was fought. The Roman Government, weary 
of these tedious campaigns, resolved to carry the war 
into Africa, and attack their enemy at home. With 
this end in view they collected a fleet of as many as 
three hundred and thirty decked ships. On these they 
embarked their best troops. Each vessel had a crew 
of three hundred seamen, and carried a complement 
of one hundred and twenty soldiers. The Cartha- 
ginian force was still larger, numbering three hundred 
and fifty ships, and one hundred and fifty thousand 
men. The two fleets met at Ecnomus, a promontory 
of the southern coast of Sicily. 

The Roman fleet was formed in the shape of a 
triangle, with the apex or point towards the enemy. 
At this point were the two huge ships, each rowed by 
six banks of oars, in which sailed the two Roman 
Consuls — Atilius Regulus, of whom we shall hear 
again, and Manlius. Each side of this triangle was 
made up of a squadron ; a third squadron, which held 
the transports containing the cavalry in tow, formed 
the base ; and there was yet a fourth, a reserve, 
ranged in one long line so as to cover both flanks of 
the squadrons before them. 

The Carthaginians adopted very different tactics. 
They arranged their ships in what may be called open 
order, extending their line from the shore far out to 
sea with the view of surrounding the enemy. The 
shore squadron, or left wmg, was under the command 
of Hamilcar ; the rest of the fleet was led by the 



BATTLE OF ECNOMUS. 139 

Han no whose army had been defeated before Agri- 
gentum. The Roman fleet began the attack. Seeing 
that the enemy had but a weak hne of single ships, 
they bore down upon the centre. Hamilcar had 
foreseen this, and had given orders to his officers to 
retreat as soon as the attack should be made. This 
was done, and with the expected result. The Romans 
eagerly pursued the flying enemy ; their order of 
battle was broken, the two squadrons in advance 
being separated from the third (that which had the 
transports in tow) and from the reserve. Then the 
retreating Carthaginians turned upon their pursuers. 
An obstinate fight followed ; the Carthaginians had 
the advantage in seamanship and in the speed of 
their ships. But do what they might, they hardly 
dared to come to close quarters. The Roman ships 
were fitted with the dreaded grappling and boarding 
machines. If these were once brought into use the 
battle had to be fought by the soldiers, and there 
v/as no chance of standing against the soldiers of 
Rome. 

While this struggle was going on, another com- 
menced in the rear of the Roman fleet. Hanno bore 
down with his ships upon the reserve squadron and 
threw it into confusion. And then began a third, 
the left or in-shore wing of the Carthaginian fleet 
attacking the squadron which had the transports 
attached to it. But the Roman superiority was 
maintained everywhere. At close quarters the Car- 
thaginians could not hold their own, and though 
here and there they might sink a ship by a sudden 
skilful charge, to close quarters they were bound 



140 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



sooner or later to come. Hamilcar was the first to 
retreat ; then Hanno, who had been pressing hard on 
the transport squadron and the reserve, was attacked 
in his turn and forced to fly. Thus the Romans won 
the second great naval victory. Twenty- six of their 
ships had been sunk, but none were taken. The Car- 
thagmians lost about a hundred, as many as sixty- 
four having been captured with all their crews. Those 
that escaped were scattered in all directions, and 
there was now nothing to prevent the Romans from 
invading Africa. 




II. 

TPIE INVASION OF AFRICA. 

Han NO hastened home with the news of the disaster 
of Ecnomus (though home, as we have seen, was not 
the place to which a defeated Carthaginian genera' 
would naturally desire to go), and bade his country- 
men prepare for defence. But Carthage was, now as 
ever, almost helpless when attacked in her own do- 
minions. Her subjects were always disaffected and 
ready to rebel ; and even her own colonies were not 
permitted to protect themselves with walls. No 
resistance could be offered to the invaders, who found 
the country much the same as Agathocles had found 
it fifty years before, a singularly rich and perfectly 
defenceless region They collected- a rich booty, part 
of which consisted of as many as twenty thousand 
slaves. It is possible that if, instead of busying them- 
selves with plunder, they had advanced on Carthage 
at once, they might have finished the war at a single 
blow. 

If this had ever been possible, it certainly ceased to 
be so when an order came from the Senate at Rome 
that one of the consuls was to remain in Africa with 
such forces as might be necessary to finish the war, 



142 



THE STURY OF CARTHAGE. 



while the other was to return home with the rest of 
the expedition. Regulus was left accordingly with 
fifteen thousand infantry and six hundred horse and a 
squadron of forty ships ; the rest of the force, with the 
vast booty that had been collected, Manlius put on 
shipboard and carried back to Italy. 




RESERVOIRS OK CARTHAGE. 

The Carthaginians, on the other hand, were doing 
their best to strengthen their force. They appointed 
two new generals, and sent for a third from Sicily, who 
at once came back, bringing with him between five and 
six thousand men. It .seems strange that the Romans, 
who must now have been masters of the sea, made 



DEFEAT OF HAMILCAR. 



143 



no attempt to interrupt him. On his arrival the 
Carthaginians resolved to take the offensive. The 
Vv'ealthy citizens could not bear to see their estates 
plundered and their country houses burnt to the 
ground, and resolved to risk a battle. What might 
have been the result if they had had skilful generals 
is doubtful ; but, unfortunately, skilful generals could 
not be found. Hamilcar and his colleagues marched 
out of the city and took up their position upon a hill. 
As their strength was in cavalry and elephants they 




'mm'' 

CROSS SECTION OF CISTERN WALL. FROM DAUX. 

ought, of course, to have remained on level ground, 
where both these could have been brought into use. 
The Roman general, whose military ability was great, 
saw his advantage. Half the enemy's force was 
useless in the position which he was occupying, and 
in that position he resolved to attack him. He 
ordered a simultaneous advance against both sides 
of the hill on which the Carthaginian camp was 
pitched. The cavalry and the elephants were, as he 
had foreseen, quite useless ; and though some of the 



144 ^-^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

mercenaries stood firm against the first charge, these 
too gave way when they were taken in the rear. The 
Romans won a decided victory, though they were 
too weak in cavalry to inflict much loss upon the 
enemy in his retreat. The next day they advanced 
and took up a position at Tunes, a town which, as 
we have seen, was not more than five miles from 
Carthage. 

The Carthaginians were in despair. Both their 
fleet and their army had suff'ered terrible defeats, and 
their subjects and allies were in rebellion — the Afri- 
cans ravaging the territory of their late masters even 
more mercilessly than did the Romans. In fact they 
had nothing left to them but the city itself; and thi^, 
crowded with the multitude of fugitives that had fled 
into it from all the country round about, was threat- 
ened with famine. Affairs were in this condition 
when envoys arrived from Regulus, who was afraid 
that his year of office might expire before the war 
was finished, offering to treat for peace. Envoys 
were at once sent from Carthage ; but they could do 
nothing. The Roman general, probably aware that 
the Senate at home would not sanction any great 
concessions, demanded terms which it was impossible to 
grant. The Carthaginian government felt that they 
could not be more entirely humiliated by absolute 
conquest, and they broke oft the negotiation, resolving 
to resist to the last. 

Then came one of those singular turns of fortune 
of which history is so full. The pride of the Roman 
general was " the pride that goeth before a fall." The 
Carthaginians had not hesitated to use their almost 



XANTIPPUS. 145 

boundless wealth in hiring mercenaries from abroad, 
and now there came to Africa a body of these troops 
in command of one of those soldiers of fortune who 
have had the luck to have great opportunities and to 
make good use of them. Xantippus came from the 
best school of soldiers in the world — Sparta. It was 
a Spartan who had turned the tide when Athens 
seemed likely to conquer Syracuse ; and another 
Spartan was to do the same service for Carthage 
against Rome. Xantippus heard the story of the 
late battle ; he saw the strength of the Carthaginian 
forces, the numbers of their cavalry and of their 
elephants, and he came to the conclusion — a conclu- 
sion which he did not hesitate to announce to his 
friends — that their disasters had been due, not to the 
inferiority of their army, but to the unskilfulness of 
the generals. The Senate sent for him. Introduced 
into the council-chamber, he set forth the causes of 
the late defeat, and the strategy which ought to be 
pursued in the future, with such clearness as to 
convince his hearers. The generals were displaced, 
and the " care of the army was committed " to the 
Spartan. 

Every one hoped much from the change, and 
Xantippus soon began to show himself equal to his 
task. Even in drilling the troops — and this he began 
to do at once — his skill was so manifestly superior to 
that of his colleagues, that the soldiers began to feel 
the utmost confidence in him. They loudly asked 
that they might be led against the enemy, and that 
the general who was to lead them should be Xantippus. 
The other generals offered to give up their commands 



146 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

to their comrade ; and the army, which numbered 
twelve thousand foot and tour thousand horse, and 
which was accompanied by the enormous number of a 
hundred elephants,^ was led out against the enemy. 
Xantippus arranged the elephants in a single line in 
front. Behind these he placed what Polybius calls 
" the Carthaginian phalanx." Probably the desperate 
condition of the country had brought a force of native 
Carthaginians into the field. On the right wing were 
posted the heavy-armed mercenaries. With them 
were ranged also some of the light-armed troops and 
of the cavalry. The left wing was made up entirely 
of the two latter kinds of troops. 

Regulus, on the other hand; when he saw that the 
Carthaginians were bent on fighting, arranged his 
line of battle with the special view of holding his 
ground against the elephants, which his men greatly 
feared. The light-armed troops were, as usual, posted 
in front ; but behind them stood the legions in un- 
usually deep and close order. The cavalry were 
posted as usual on the wings. These tactics were 
well contrived to resist the elephants, but laid the 
army, with its narrow front, open to the flank attacks 
of the powerful Carthaginian cavalry, 

Xantippus began the battle by a forward movement 
of his elephants against the Roman centre. His 
cavalry charged at the same time on either wing. The 
Roman horse, five hundred only against four thousand — 

' It is not easy to imagine how a city which was threatened with 
famine could support a hundred elephants, each of which must have 
required a daily ration of at least half a hundredweight of food, some 
of it at least available for human consumption. 



DEFEAT OF REGULUS. I47 

if these numbers are right — was speedily overpowered. 
The Roman left wing at first fared better. Charging 
fiercely, with not the less zeal because they were not 
called to encounter the dreaded elephants, they fell on 
the heavy-armed mercenaries, routed them, and pur- 
sued them as far as their camp. The centre, too, held 
its own for a time. The front ranks, indeed, were 
trampled down in heaps by the elephants, but the 
main body, with its deep, close files, stood firm. 
But they had to face about to resist attacks in front, 
on the sides, and in the rear. One part, after driving 
back the elephants, was met by the phalanx of native 
Carthaginians, which was fresh and unbroken, and 
indeed had not been in action at all; another had to 
resist the furious charges of the cavalry ; nor were 
there any reserves to be brought up. The greater part 
of the army fell where they stood : some crushed by 
the elephants, others struck down by the javelins 
showered on them by the nimble African horsemen, 
some slain in more equal conflict with the Carthaginian 
heavy-armed. The few that sought safety in flight 
died but with less honour. The way to the fortified 
post which they held upon the sea-coast (it was called 
Aspis or Clypea from its resemblance to a shield) 
was over a flat and open country ; the cavalry and the 
elephants pursued the fugitives, and few reached the 
fort. A solid body of two thousand men, however, 
which had broken through the mercenaries, was able 
to make good its retreat to Aspis. Five hundred 
prisoners were taken, among them the Consul Regulus. 
All the rest of the army, scarcely less than twelve 
thousand in number, perished on the field or In the 



148 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

flight. The great historian, ^ from whom I have taken 
this account, concludes his narrative of the campaign 
with reflections on the changes of fortune which bring 
men down in the course of a day from the heights 
of prosperity to the depths of misery, and on the 
marvellous results which the genius of a single man 
can effect ; but he says nothing either here or after- 
wards of the romantic story of the fate of the 
prisoner Regulus. We are not certain to what year it 
belongs — we are not even sure that it is true at all ; 
on the other hand, it is too famous, too noble in its 
meaning and moral, to be omitted. I may therefore 
tell it now where it will fitly close the career of one of 
the great soliers of Rome, the simple, frugal men who 
were called from the plough to command- the armies 
of the republic.2 

I do not know that the story can be better told 
than in Horace's noble ode, perhaps the very noblest 
that he ever wrote. Regulus, we may say, by way of 
preface, after being kept in prison at Carthage for 
several years, was sent to Rome to negotiate a peace, 
under the promise to return if he failed. Among the 
terms which he was to offer was that of a ransoming 

^ Polybius. 

- The story was told in later times that Regulus was sowing his fields 
when the messenger came with the tidings of his election to the consul- 
ship ; and the agnomen (a sort of second surname) of Serramis was 
said to have been given to the family from this circumstance. Among 
the future heroes of his race whom /Eneas sees is in his Elysian fields is 
" Serranus o'er his furrow bowed." It is cruel to have to say that the 
first Regulus that bore the name of Serranus was the son of the hero ; 
and still worse to be told that the proper spelling of the word is 
" Saranus," and that it probably comes from Saranum, an insignificant 
town of Umbria. 



A 



HORACE ON REGULUS. 1 49 

or exchanging of prisoners. When brought into the 
Senate, which at first he refused to enter as being 
now a mere Carthaginian slave, he strongly advised 
his countr3^men. At the same time he gave his voice 
against peace generally. 

With warning voice of stern rebuke 

Thus Regukis the Senate shook : 

He saw prophetic, in far clays to come, 

The heart-corrupt, and future doom of Rome. 

" These eyes," he cried, " these eyes have seen 

Unblooded swords from warriors tern. 

And Roman standards nailed in scorn 

On Punic shrines obscene ; 

Have seen the hands of free-born men 

Wrenched back; th' unbarred, unguarded gate, 

And fields our war laid desolate 

By Romans tilled again. 

" What ! will the gold- enfranchised slave 
Return more loyal and more brave ? 

Ye heap but loss on crime ! 
The wool that Cretan dyes distain 
Can ne'er its virgin hue regain ; 
And valour fallen and disgraced 
Revives not in a coward breast 

Its energy sublime. 

" The stag released from hunter's toils 
From the dread sight of man recoils, 
Is he more brave than when of old 
He ranged his forest free ? Behold 
In him your soldier ! He has knelt 
To faithless foes ; he, too, has felt 
The knotted cord : and crouched beneath 
Fear, not of shame, but death. 

" He sued for peace tho' vowed to war ; 
Will such men, girt in arms once more 
Dash headlong on the Punic shore ? 
No ! they will buy their craven lives 
With Punic scorn and Punic gyves. 



T50 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

O mighty Carthage, rearing high 
Thy fame upon our infamy, 
A city eye, an empire built 
On Roman ruins, Roman guilt ? " 

From the chaste kiss, and wild embrace 
Of wife and babes, he turned his face, 
A man self-doomed to die, 
Then bent his manly brow, in scorn. 
Resolved, relentless, sad but stern. 

To earth, all silently ; 
Till counsel never heard before 
Had nerved each wavering Senator ; — 
Till flushed each cheek with patriot shame. 
And surging rose the loud acclaim ; — 
Then, from his weeping friends, in haste, 
To exile and to death he passed. 

He knew the tortures that Barbaric hate ' 

Had stored for him. Exulting in his fate, 

With kindly hand he waved away 

The crowds that strove his course to stay. 

He passed from all, as when in days of yore. 

His judgment given, thro' client throngs he pressed 

In glad Venafrian fields to seek his rest, 

Or Greek Tarentum on th' Ionian shore.' 

What is the truth about the " tortures of barbaric 
hate" we cannot say. The Romans had a horrible 
story of how the hero on his return was cruelly put to 
death. But then they were never scrupulous about 
the truth when they were writing of their enemies ; 
and about Carthage and its doings they were, w-e have 
reason to believe, particularly apt to exaggerate and 
even to invent. On the other hand, the Carthaginians 
showed no mercy to their own generals when these 

' I have availed myself of a translation by Sir Stephen De Vere. 
(Rell and Sons, 1885.) 



REVENGE FOR REGULUS. I51 

were unsuccessful ; and it is very probable that they 
showed as little to an enemy, especially when he had 
done them such damage and had treated them as 
haughtily as had Regulus. 

But there is at least equal authority for a story not 
less horrible which is told against the Romans them- 
selves, or rather against a Roman woman. The 
Senate handed over two noble Carthaginians to the 
wife of Regulus as hostages for the safety of her hus- 
band. When she heard of his death she ordered her 
servants to fasten the two prisoners in a cask, and to 
keep them without bread and water. After five days 
one of them died. The savage creature kept the living 
shut up with the dead, giving him now a little bread and 
water that his torments might be prolonged. But the 
servants themselves rebelled against these horrible 
doings, and informed the Tribunes of the people of 
what was going on. By them the poor wretch was 
rescued ; and the people would not allow him to be 
ill-treated any more. 




III. 



IN SICILY AGAIN. 



The Romans still retained their superiority at sea. 
It is, indeed, a very strange thing that the Cartha- 
ginians, though they had been sailors, and adven- 
turous sailors too, for centuries, should have been 
beaten almost at once on their own element by a 
people that had had little or nothing to do with it.^ 
But so it was. News of the disaster that had hap- 
pened to the army of Regulus was brought to Rome, 
and a fleet was sent to carry off the garrison of 
Clypea, which, it was said, still held out against the 
enemy. It met and defeated the fleet of Carthage, 
taking, we are told, as many as one hundred and 
fourteen vessels out of a total of two hundred, and 
carried the troops. But though the Romans seem to 
have fought as well by sea as by land, still they were 
not sailors. We shall hear several times in the course 



^ The fleet of Rome must have been, to a great extent, manned by 
the Itahan allies. Indeed, down to just a late period the seamen em- 
ployed in it were called socii navales, "naval allies." Polybius, to 
show the ignorance of the Romans in these matters, has a curious story 
of how the crews of the ships first built during the war were taught to 
row by practising on dry land. The practising, one imagines, would 
not go very far in teaching them. 



ROMAN LOSSES AT SEA. 153 

of the next few years of terrible losses by shipwreck, 
losses which we know to have been increased, if not 
caused, by the obstinacy and ignorance of the officers 
in command. So it seems to have been in the case 
of the relieving fleet. The pilots warned the consuls 
that the south coast of Sicily was dangerous, but 
warned in vain. The result was a calamity of which 
Pol3^bius, a sober and sensible writer, says that " his- 
tory can scarcely afford another example of so great 
and general a disaster." Out of four hundred and 
sixty-four vessels little more than a sixth part escaped. 
The Carthaginians were proportionately encouraged, 
and, fitting up a new fleet and levying another army, 
resolved to have another struggle for Sicily. In the 
first campaign, indeed, they lost Panormus, but in 
those that followed they had a clear advantage. 
Again the weather helped them. The Romans lost 
another fleet, and for a time gave up all hope of being 
masters of the sea, contenting themselves with keep- 
ing only so many vessels afloat as were wanted to 
carry supplies to their army. In the field, too, Car- 
thage more than held her own. The havoc which the 
elephants had wrought in the army of Regulus had 
not been forgotten, and the Roman armies did not 
venture to offer battle in any place where the ground 
was suitable for the action of these formidable crea- 
tures. It was not till they found out that it was easy 
to make them as dangerous to their friends as they 
could be to their foes that they dared to face them. 
One of the Carthaginian generals was rash enough to 
use the animals in attacking a town. The archers 
showered arrows upon them from the walls till, 



154 '^^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

driven to madness by their wounds, they turned 
round and broke down their own ranks. Many 
fell into the hands of the Romans on this occasion. 
A still greater gain was that they were no longer 
feared. 

And now began one of the most obstinate sieges 
recorded in history. Lilybaeum was a strongly fortified 
town near the Cape of the same name. Its wall was 
unusually high, and its ditch unusually deep, while 
the harbour could be approached only by a channel 
through shallow lakes which stretched between it 
and the sea. The Romans began by attacking a fort 
on the south-western wall, and battered down six of 
the towers upon the wall. Himilco, who was in com- 
mand of the garrison, was unceasing in his efforts, re- 
pairing the breaches, digging countermines, and watch- 
ing continually for a chance of setting fire to the 
Roman works. And he averted a worse danger in 
the threatened treachery of the mercenaries. The 
leaders of these troops were actually in treaty with 
the Romans, when Himilco heard of what was going 
on, and contrived to break it off. A few days after- 
wards came help from Carthage. No news of the 
garrison at Lilybaeum had reached the city, and it was 
feared that they were in distress. A fleet of fifty ships 
was hastily fitted out and despatched to Sicily, with a 
relieving force of ten thousand men on board. The 
admiral in command waited for a favourable wind, and 
then, with all his ships ready for action, sailed straight 
into the harbour, the Romans being so surprised by 
their boldness that they did not attempt to oppose. 
Himilco, encouraged by this reinforcement, resolved 




o ^a - - 

STELE AT LILYB.^UM. 



ROMAN DISASTERS. 157 

to attack the besiegers. Sallying forth with nearly 
his whole force, he fell on the Roman works ; but he 
just missed his object : his troops were on the point 
of setting lire to the engines and towers when he 
found that they were suffering heavier loss than he 
could afford, and withdrew them. But a few weeks 
afterwards he succeeded. The works had been injured 
by a violent gale, and some of the mercenaries saw 
in the confusion thus caused an opportunity for 
destroying them. Himilco approved their scheme. 
These bands sallied from the gate and set fire to three 
different places. The Romans were taken by sur- 
prise ; and the wind blew such volumes of smoke into 
their faces that they could see and do nothing. In 
the end everything was destroyed, the towers being 
burnt to the ground, and the metal heads of the rams 
melted. After this loss they gave up all hopes of 
taking the place by storm, and resolved to trust to a 
blockade. 

Meanwhile the Carthaginian fleet lay at Drepanum ; 
and this the new consuls who came into office in the 
year 249 resolved to attack. Publius Claudiu.s, who was 
in command, managed to reach Drepanum unobserved. 
Adherbal, the Carthaginian admiral, was taken by 
surprise, but did not lose courage. He manned his 
ships at once, and sailing out of the harbour by the 
opposite side to that by which the Romans were 
entering, formed his line on the open sea outside. 
Claudius had to recall his ships ; such as had entered 
the harbour came into collision in backing out with 
those that followed them, and there was great con- 
fusion. Still the captains ranged them as well as they 



15''^ THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

could along the shore, with their prows turned towards 
the enemy. But they had lost the choice of ground ; 
the Carthaginians had the open sea and plenty of 
room to manoeuvre. They could retreat when they 
were hard pressed, and turn again when the oppor- 
tunity occurred. When the Roman vessels ventured 
to advance they were attacked in front, on the side, 
and in rear. But a Roman ship that was in diffi- 
culties had nothing behind it but the shore. If it 
retired, it either grounded in the shallows or was 
actually stranded. Nor was this disadvantage of 
place counterbalanced by any superiority in the build 
of the ships or in seamanship. The ships were 
clumsy, the seamen unskilful. In the end Claudius 
suffered a crushing defeat. He made his own escape 
with thirty ships ; but all the rest, nearly a hundred in 
number, were captured. The crews, too, were taken 
prisoners, excepting a few who beached their ships 
and jumped ashore. 

Junius, the other consul, was even more un- 
fortunate. He had a hundred and twenty ships of 
war, with which he had to convey a fleet of eight 
hundred transports. The Carthaginian admiral 
forced him to cast anchor on a lee-shore (near 
Camarina), where there was no harbour within reach. 
When it came on to blow the blockading squadron put 
out to sea, and doubling Cape Pachynus escaped the 
worst of the storm. The Roman fleet had not time, 
or perhaps was not wise enough, to follow them. 
Anyhow, it was completely destroyed. " Scarcely a 
plank remained entire," says the historian. As a few 
days before most of the ships in the harbour of 



THE ROMANS GAIN ERYX. 159 

Lilybseum had been burnt, Rome was now without a 
fleet. 

Still, the siege of Lilybaeum was pushed on. The 
blockading army had now most of Sicily to draw 
upon for stores, and was well supplied, while the town 
could be provisioned from the sea. Though the 



COIN : THE TEMPLE AND RAMPARTS OF ERYX. 

Romans gained possession by surprise of the strong 
post of Eryx, the second highest mountain in Sicily, 
the war for some time dragged on without much 
advantage to either side. 

And now appeared upon the scene one of the few 
great men that Carthage produced. Hamilcar, sur- 



l6o THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

named Barca,i • was a very young man when he was 
appointed to the command of the Carthaginian fleet 
and army. But he had already made himself a name, 
and he soon showed that he was fit for his post. He 
established himself in a strong place in the north-west 
of the island, between Panormus and Drepanum. It 
was a lofty rock called Hercta (now Pellegrind), and 
seemS'to have united every kind of advantage. It was 
so difficult of approach from the land that it could be 
defended by a very small force. There was some 
productive land in the neighbourhood. The climate 
was cool and healthy ; and there was a deep and 
spacious harbour. In this place, though the Roman 
forces held all the neighbourhood, he maintained 
himself for three years. His fleet— for Rome had 
given up for the present the attempt to command the 
sea — ravaged the southern coasts of Italy, and helped 
to furnish him with supplies. On land he kept his 
enemies engaged by perpetual surprises and strata- 
gems. He won, indeed, no great victory over them, 
but he kept them from doing anything else, and the 
siege of Lilybaeum made no progress. So anxious 
were the Romans to drive him out of this stronghold, 
that they at one time assembled as many as forty 
thousand men to carry on their attacks upon him. 
All, however, was in vain, and it was of his own free 
will that at the end of three years he took up another 
position. This was Eryx, the capture of which by the 
Romans has been mentioned above. He put his army 
on board the fleet, and suddenly carried it to the 
place which he had fixed upon, and though the 

^ See page ii. 



HASDRUBAL S SUCCESSES. 



l6l 



enemy still held the fort upon the top of the hills, 
got possession of the town. Here he maintained 
himself for two years, getting little help, it would 
seem, from home, for one of his chief difficulties was 
with his mercenaries, who were clamourinsf for the 




PHCENICIAN WALL AT ERYX. 



pay which he could not give them, and whom he was 
obliged to put off with promises. Still the Romans 
could make no impression on him, and of course made 
no advance in the siege of the Carthaginian fortresses. 



l62 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



If Hamilcar could have been everywhere the war 
might have had a different result, or, in any case, 
might have been prolonged still more than it was. 
But he could not be sure that his lieutenants would 
be as able as himself In 241 Rome made a great 




»»/"/ 



POSTERN IN THE WALL OF ERYX. 



effort to recover her supremacy at sea. The public 
treasury was exhausted, as it might well be after 
neary five and twenty years of war, but private citizens 
came forward to supply what was wanting. Some 
of the richest undertook to build each a ship ; or 



BATTLE OF AGATES ISLAND. ib^ 

two or three of smaller means would join together. 
Thus a fleet of two hundred five-banked vessels were 
got together, and these of the very best construction. 
With this Lutatius Catulus, the consul, sailed to Sicily. 
The Carthaginians seem to have been unprepared, not 
expecting indeed that the enemy, who had aban- 
doned the sea for several years, should now seek to 
recover the command of it. Catulus was therefore 
able to possess himself unopposed of the harbours of 
Lilybseum and Drepanum. He pressed the siege of 
the latter place with much vigour, and meanwhile 
kept his crews busy with training and exercise, till he 
made them expert and ready. 

The Carthaginians, on the other hand, prepared to 
act. The plan of Hanno, who was in command of 
the fleet, was this. To take stores for the supply 
of Hamilcar's army at Eryx, and, after landing 
•these, to take on board some of the best troops and 
Hamilcar himself, who alone was equal to an army ; 
and thus engage the Romans. It was the object of 
the Romans, on the other hand, to force an action 
before this could be done. Catulus accordingly put 
some of his best troops on board his ships and sailed 
to ^gusa, an island opposite Lilyba^um. Hanno was 
at Hiera, another island, a little further out to sea. 
The whole front was known by the name of the 
Agates (a word that has probably something to do 
with the Greek word for a goat). Catulus intended 
to give battle at once. Then, when the day for action 
came, he began to doubt. The wind was stormy, 
and was blowing from the west, and so would help the 
movements of the enemy and hinder his own. On 



164 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the other hand, there was much to be lost by delay. 
At present the Carthaginian ships were burdened 
with the stores which they were carrying. If he did 
not engage them at once they would rid themselves 
of these, would take on board some first-rate troops 
from the army at Eryx, and, above all, would 
have the presence of the dreaded Hamilcar himself. 
These thoughts made him resolve on battle. The 
Carthaginians were already on their way eastward 
when he put out to sea. His crews, become strong 
and dexterous by practice, got their ships between the 
enemy and the point for which he was making, and, 
ranged in a single line, prepared to receive them. 
The conflict was short and decisive. Hanno's ships 
were encumbered with stores ; his crews were un- 
skilled, for the fleet had been neglected, and the' 
troops on board were nothing better than raw levies. 
In all these points the Romans were superior ; they 
had nothing on board but what was wanted for the 
battle ; their rowers were well trained, and their 
fighting men of the best quality. At the very first 
meeting they showed their superiority. Fifty of the 
Carthaginian ships were sunk and seventy more taken 
with all their crews ; the rest were saved by a sudden 
change of the wind to the east which took them back 
to their anchorage at Hiera. 

The battle of the Agates Islands brought the war 
to an end. Carthage could no longer provision her 
army in Sicily, and felt that it was usele s to prolong 
the struggle. Accordingl}^, Hamilcar was empowered 
to make peace. The Romans were ready enough to 
meet him, for they too were exhausted by the long 



CONCLUSION OF WAR. 165 

struggles, and after some negotiations a treaty was 
made. The chief condition was that Carthage was 
to give up all her positions in Sicily, and engage to 
leave the island alone for the future. She had had a 
hold on the island for at least four centuries, and 
for nearly two had cherished hopes of winning it. 
Sometimes she had been very near their accomplish- 
ment. Now they had to be finally given up. This was 
undoubtedly a great blow. We may call it the first 
great step downward. A war indemnity of nearly 
ii8oo,ooo was imposed. But Hamilcar was resolved 
to save his honour. The Romans demanded that 
the troops at Eryx should surrender. This demand 
he resolutely refused, and it was given up. They 
marched out with all the honours of war and were 
carried back to Carthage ; and so, after a duration of 
four and twenty years, the First Punic War came to 
an end. 



IV. 

CARTHAGE AND HER MERCENARIES. 

We have seen more than once that Carthage 
had much trouble with her mercenary troops. This 
trouble now came upon her again, and in a worse 
form than ever. The fact was that five and twenty 
years of war had exhausted even her vast wealth, and 
she could not meet her engagements with the soldiers 
whom she had hired. These, on the other hand, were 
more powerful than they had ever been before. They 
were not troops hired for a campaign, and discharged 
after a few months' service, but a standing army 
trained by a long war to know each other and to act 
together ; and many of them had been taught the 
art of war by a great soldier, Hamilcar Barca. 

As soon as peace was concluded, Gesco, Governor 
of Lilybaeum, had begun sending the mercenaries 
to Carthage in small detachments. He hoped that 
as they came they would be paid off and dismissed 
to their homes. Had this been done, all would have 
been well. But the government either would not or 
could not find the money. Shipload after shipload 
of the men arrived till the city was full of them. 
After a while, so troublesome and disorderly were 
they, they were collected in a camp outside the walls, 



REVOLT OF THE MERCENARIES. l6y 

and left there with nothing to do but talk over their 
grievances and plot mischief. 

When at last the money, or part of the money, was 
forthcoming, it was too late. The troops had found 
leaders, and the interest of these leaders was not 
peace but war. One of them was a certain Spendius, 
a runaway slave from Campania, who dreaded, of 
course, that when everything was settled he might be 
sent back to his master, that is to torture and death. 
He is said to have been a man of enormous strength, 
and brave even to rashness. The other was a free- 
born African, of the name of Matho. He had been 
a ringleader in all the disturbances that had taken 
place since the return of the mercenaries, and he 
dreaded the vengeance of his employers. Matho found 
his fellow Africans ready to listen to him ; and there 
was probably much truth in what he said. " The 
Carthaginians," he told his comrades, "are going to 
send to their homes the troops belonging to other 
nations ; when you are left alone they will make you 
feel their anger." A pretext for open revolt was 
soon found. Gesco, who had been sent to settle with 
the troops, handed over the arrears of pay, but put off 
the question of allowances for corn, horses, etc., to 
another time. At this proposal there were loud cries 
of discontent, and in a few minutes a noisy crowd of 
troops was assembled. Spendius and Matho harangued 
the assembly, and were received with shouts of ap- 
plause. Any one else that attempted to speak was 
killed. " Kill," says the historian, was the only word 
that every one in this motley crowd, gathered from 
almost every country of Western Europe, could under- 



l68 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

stand. The two speakers were chosen generals. 
Gesco and his staff were seized, fettered, and thrown 
into prison. There was now open war between Car- 
thage and her mercenaries. 

The African towns at once joined the rebels. They 
were always discontented with their masters, and this 
discontent had now reached its height. The neces- 
sities of Carthage during the war just ended had 
compelled her to increase the taxes of her depen- 
dencies, and to exact these taxes to the uttermost 
farthing. The rent in kind paid by the cultivators 
of the soil had been raised to a half of the pro- 
duce, and the tribute paid by the towns had been 
doubled ; and any default in payment had been cruelly 
punished. So fierce was the wrath raised by this 
oppression that the very women brought their orna- 
ments — and her ornaments were no small part of 
an African woman's wealth — and threw them into 
the common stock. From these and other sources, 
Spendius and Matho received so much money that 
they settled all the claims of the troops, and had 
still abundance of means for carrying on the war. 

Two towns only. Hippo and Utica, remained loyal. 
These were at once besieged. The mercenaries had 
three armies in the field. One was before Hippo, 
another before Utica ; the third held an entrenched 
camp at Tunes. Carthage was thus cut off from all 
communication by land with Africa : but she still 
retained command of the sea. 

The Carthaginian commander-in-chief, Hanno,^ 

'■ This Hanno seems somehow to have got the title of " The Great," 
but to have done very little to deserve it. 




a^ 55 4i Eo 



vm 



PLAN OF HARBOUR AT UTICA. 



SIEGE OF UTICA. 171 

marched against the rebel force that was besieging 
Utica. He had as many as a hundred elephants 
with him. These broke through the entrenchments 
of the rebel camp, and the mercenaries fled in con- 
fusion. Hanno, accustomed to have to do with half 
savage enemies, who, once defeated, could not easily 
be rallied, thought that the victory was won, and, 
while he was amusing himself in Utica, allowed his 
troops to be as idle and as careless as they pleased. 
But the enemy were soldiers trained by Hamilcar 
Barca, and accustomed to retreat and rally, if need 
was, more than once in the same day. They rallied 
now, and seeing that the Carthaginian camp was left 
unguarded, attacked it, and got possession of a 
quantity of stores, and, among them, of some artillery 
which Hanno had sent for out of the city. 

The conduct of the war was now committed to 
Hamilcar. The strength of his force was a corps 
of ten thousand native Carthaginians. Besides these 
he had a body of mercenaries, a number of deserters 
from the enemy, and seventy elephants. His first 
operation was to relieve Utica. The chief difficulty 
was to break the blockade which the rebel general 
Matho had established round Carthage. The hills 
at the land end of the isthmus on which the city 
stood were held in force by the rebels ; as was the 
only bridge over the river Macar. But Hamilcar had 
noticed that a certain wind brought up such quanti- 
ties of sand to the bar of the Macar as to make it 
easily fordable. Taking advantage of th is, he marched 
his army across the river by night, and, to the sur- 
prise of both friends and enemies, appeared in the 



172 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

morning on the other side, and hastened to attack the 
rear of the rebel force that was guarding the bridge. 
A strong detachment from the besiegers of Utica 
advanced to support their comrades. Hamilcar was 
marching with his elephants in front, his light-armed 
troops behind them, and his heavy-armed in the rear. 
On coming in sight of the enemy, he changed this 
disposition. Spendius mistook the movement for a 
flight, and ordered a charge. The rebels found the 
heavy troops quietly waiting to receive them, while 
the cavalry and the elephants fell upon their flanks. 
They were soon broken. Six thousand were slain 
upon the field of battle, and two thousand taken 
prisoners. Hamilcar had broken the blockade ; but 
Hippo and Utica were still besieged, and the rebels 
were still in force at Tunes. 

His success, however, had a good effect on the 
African tribes. One of the chief Numidian princes 
came into his camp with a force of two thousand 
men, and Hamilcar felt himself strong enough again 
to offer battle. The fight that ensued was long and 
obstinate. At last the Carthaginians prevailed, chiefly 
by the help of the elephants. Ten thousand rebels 
were killed, and four thousand taken prisoners. To 
these latter Hamilcar, with a wise mercy, offered 
liberal terms. They might take service with Car- 
thage, or they might go home. But if they were 
found in arms again, they must expect no further 
mercy. 

The rebel generals were dismayed when they heard 
of this politic act. Their only plan was to commit 
their followers to deeds which could not be pardoned. 




MAP OF PENINSULA OF CARTHAGE. 



MASSACRE OF PRISONERS. 1 75 

Accordingly they called an assembly of the soldiers. 
Into this was brought a courier who professed to 
come with a despatch from the rebels in Sardinia. 
This despatch contained a warning of a plot that was 
being hatched in the camp for setting Gesco and the 
other prisoners free. Then Spendius stood up to 
speak. " Do not trust Hamilcar," he said. " His 
mercy is a mere pretence. When he has got you all 
in his power, he will punish you all. And meanwhile 
take care that Gesco, who is a most dangerous man, 
does not escape you." When he had finished speaking, 
a second courier arrived, this time professing to come 
from the camp at Tunes, and bearing a despatch to 
much the same effect as the first. On this Antaritus, 
a Gaul, who had shared the command with Spendius 
and Matho, rose to address the assembly. He had 
the advantage of being able to speak in Carthaginian, 
a language of which most of his hearers, from long 
service with the State, knew something. He told his 
hearers that it was madness to think of concluding 
peace with Carthage. Any one who advised such a 
thing was a traitor, and they had better make it im- 
possible by putting the prisoners to death. 

This horrible advice was followed. Gesco and his 
fellow- prisoners, seven hundred in number, were 
cruelly murdered, and from that time till the end of 
the war no mercy w^as showed on either side. 

For a time everything went ill with the Carthaginians. 
Hanno had been joined with Hamilcar in the com- 
mand ; but the two could not agree, and the army 
suffered greatly in consequence. Sardinia was lost to 
Carthage, and now Utica and Hippo revolted, after 



176 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

massacring their Carthaginian garrisons. At this crisis 
the foreign alHes of the State stood faithfully by it. 
Hiero of Syracuse gave them help. It was not to 
his interest that Carthage should be destroyed. Rome 
left without a rival would be too powerful, and Syra- 
cuse would soon be swallowed up. And Rome, 
without the same reason, behaved equally well. She 
would not take possession either of Sardinia or of 
Utica, though both were offered to her by the rebels. 
And she allowed traders to send supplies into Carth- 
age, while she forbad them to have any dealings with 
the rebels. 

And now the tide turned against the mercenaries. 
They were besieging Carthage, but they were also 
besieged themselves. Naravasus, a Numidian prince, 
with his cavalry cut off all supplies from the country, 
and they were reduced to the most frightful ex- 
tremities. Spendius and his colleagues endeavoured 
to make terms, Hamilcar agreed to let the rebels go 
free, with ten exceptions such as he should choose. 
When the treaty was concluded, he said, " I choose 
among the ten those that are now present," Spendius 
and Antaritus were two of them. 

The siege of Carthage was now raised, and Hamilcar 
advanced against the camp at Tunes. He posted 
himself on one side, while his lieutenant, Hannibal, 
took up his position on the other, Spendius and his 
fellow - prisoners were crucified before the walls. 
Unfortunately Hannibal was an incompetent general. 
Matho, who was in command of the rebels, made 
a sally, stormed the camp, and took Hannibal him- 
self prisoner. In retaliation for the death of Spendius 



END OF WAR WITH MERCENARIES. IJJ 

he was fastened alive to the same cross on which the 
body of the rebel leader was still hanging. 

Carthage now made a last effort to bring the war 
to an end. Every citizen that was of an age to bear 
arms was forced to serve. Hamilcar and Hanno 
agreed to forget their differences and to act together. 
And now everything went well. Matho was com- 
pelled to risk a battle, and was defeated and taken 
prisoner. All the African towns, except Utica and 
Hippo, at once submitted, and these, finding them- 
selves alone, did not long hold out. 

" Such," says Polybius, " was the conclusion of the 
war between Carthaginians and their mercenaries, 
after a continuance of three years and about four 
months ; a war by far the most impious and bloody 
of any that we find in history." 

Carthage came out of the struggle much weakened. 
Besides men and money she lost her province of 
Sardinia. The Romans seem to have repented of 
their moderation, and did not refuse the island when 
it was offered them by the rebel mercenaries a second 
time, and when Carthage prepared to retake the 
island by force, Rome declared war. The unfortunate 
State had to give way, and to pay besides an indemnity 
of twelve hundred talents. 



V. 



CARTHAGE AND SPAIN. 



When the war of the mercenaries was at lasl 
over, Hamilcar Barca was left the greatest man in 
Carthage. It was he who had saved the State at it? 
greatest need ; and it was to him the people looked for 
guidance. For the next forty years, or thereabouts, 
he and his family, or the party that was led by them, 
called by their opponents the " Barcine Faction," had 
the government in their hands. Hamilcar's one 
object was to recover what Carthage had lost ; but it 
was an object which it was difficult to attain. To 
reconquer Sicily and the other islands of the Western 
Mediterranean was hopeless. For four hundred years 
and more Carthage had spent her strength in these 
regions, and had never quite got them into her grasp. 
Now they had passed for ever into hands which were 
stronger than hers. Not only must no action be 
taken directly against Rome, but nothing must be 
done to rouse her jealousy. Another war with Rome 
would be fatal, at least till Carthage had got back 
her strength, and war had already been threatened. 
Hamilcar had to look elsewhere, and he looked to 
Spain. Carthage had already had dealings with this 
country. She had trading ports along its coasts, and 



HAMILCAR IN SPAIN. 179 

she had got some of her best troops from its tribes. 
Hamilcar now conceived the idea of building up here 
an empire which should be a compensation for that 
which his country had lost elsewhere. This idea he 
kept secret till he had begun to carry it into action. 
He set out with the army, of which he seems to have 
been permanent commander-in-chief, on an expedition 
to complete the conquest of the African tribes dwel- 
ling westward of Carthage. Little or nothing was 
heard of him till the news came that he had crossed 
over into Spain, and was waging war on the native 
tribes. For nine years he worked on, making a new 
empire for his country. We know little or nothing 
about his campaigns, except that they were successful. 
Not only did he make war support itself, but he sent 
home large sums of money with which to keep up the 
influence of his party, and he had still enough to spare 
for bribing native chiefs. At the end of the nine 
years he fell in battle. But he left an able successor 
behind him in Hasdrubal, his son-in-law, who had 
been his colleague in his campaigns. Hasdrubal 
carried out his plans, and completed the work which 
he had begun. Here, too, we know nothing of de- 
tails. That he was a good soldier we are sure, for 
when the restless tribes of the African coast had 
risen in arms after Hamilcar had crossed over into 
Spain, he had been sent back by his chief, and had 
soon reduced them to submission. But he seems to 
have been still greater as a manager and ruler of men. 
By pleasing manners, by politic dealing with the 
native tribes, and by friendship formed with their 
petty chiefs — he is said to have married a Spanish 



iSo THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

princess — he furthered the cause of his country more 
than by force of arms. The foundation of New 
Carthage was his work. It had the best harbour on 
the coast ; it was near the rich silver mines discovered 
by Aletes, and it soon became the capital of the 
new province. So powerful, indeed, was Hasdrubal 
that he was suspected of a plan for making himself 
absolute master of Carthage ; while the treaty with 
the Romans by which the boundaries of the two 
empires were fixed at the river Ebro is spoken of as 
having been made with Hasdrubal. 

The jealousy of the Romans had indeed by this 
time been roused. They saw with some alarm the 
wonderful progress that the Carthaginian general was 
making with the Spanish tribes, and they looked 
about for friends for themselves. Saguntum, a town 
partly Greek in origin (its name seems to have been 
connected with that of Zacynthos, one of the islands 
off the western coast of Greece), applied to them for 
protection, and they readily promised it. A treaty 
was concluded by which the river Iberus (now the 
Ebro) was to be the eastern boundary of the Cartha- 
ginian province, but it was stipulated that Saguntum, 
which lay about fifty miles within these limits, should 
be independent. Hasdrubal met his death by assas- 
sination. He had executed a Spanish chief for some 
offence against his government, and one of the man's 
slaves in revenge struck him down. He had held the 
chief command in Spain for a little more than eight 
years. 

And now the greatest man that Carthage ever pro- 
duced comes to the front. Some seventeen years 



HANNIBAL. l8l 

before, when Hamilcar was about to cross over into 
Spain, his son Hannibal, then a boy of nine, begged 
to be allowed to go with him. The father consented, 
but first he brought the boy up to the altar on which, 
in preparation for the expedition he was about to 
make, he was offering sacrifice, and bade him lay his 
hand upon the victim, and swear eternal hatred to 
Rome. We shall see how the lad kept his oath. 

Ke was present at the battle in which his father 
met his death ; and though then but eighteen years 
of age, was put by his brother-in-law, Hamilcar's suc- 
cessor, in high military command. " There was no 
one," says Livy, " whom Hasdrubal preferred to put 
in command, whenever courage and persistency were 
specially needed, no officer under whom the soldiers 
were more confident and more daring." And indeed 
he was the very model of a soldier. He was bold, 
but never rash, cool in the presence of danger, and 
infinitely fertile in resource. To fatigue he seemed 
insensible. He could bear heat and cold equally well'. 
Of food and drink he cared only to take so much as 
satisfied the needs of nature. To sleep he gave such 
time as business spared him ; and he could take it 
anywhere and anyhow. Many a time could he be 
seen lying on the ground, wrapped in his military 
cloak, among the sentries and pickets. About his 
dress he was careless ; it was nothing better than that 
of his humblest comrades. But his arms and his 
horses were the best that could be found. He was 
an admirable rider, a skilful man at arms, and as 
brave as he was skilful. With such a man in the 
camp, there could be no doubt as to the successor of 



I62 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Hasdrubal : the army at once elected him to the com- 
mand. His strong resemblance to his father, whom 
many of the soldiers still remembered, was not the 
least of his many claims. And the government at 
home could do nothing but confirm the election. 

Hannibal's first operations were against some 
Spanish tribes in the interior, occupying the country 
on both banks of the Upper Tagus (the western por- 
tion of what is now New Castile). A great victory 
over a native army, which is said to have numbered 
as many as a hundred thousand men, brought to an 
end these campaigns, which occupied the autumn of 
221 and the greater part of the following year. 

In the spring of 219 Hannibal laid siege to Sagun- 
tum. His first operations were successful. His quick 
eye had spied the weak place in the town's fortifica- 
tions, and he at once made it the object of his attack ; 
but the Saguntines were prepared to receive him. 
Indeed they more than held their own, and Hannibal 
himself was dangerously wounded by a javelin thrown 
from the wall. But he had the advantage of vast 
numbers — his army amounting, it is said, to as many as 
150,000 — while the garrison had not men enough to 
guard the whole circuit of their walls. The battering- 
rams were used with effect, and a breach was made. 
Then came an attempt to storm, furiously made, and 
furiously resisted. The townspeople are said to have 
made great havoc among the besiegers by a curious 
missile, which is described as having had a heavy iron 
point and a shaft which was wrapped in tow and set 
alight. In the end the storming party was beaten 
br.ck. 



SIEGE OF SAGUNTUM. 1S3 

Meanwhile an embassy arrived from Rome. Han- 
nibal refused to receive it. He pretended that it 
would not be safe for the envoys to enter his camp. 
He could not, he said, undertake to protect them from 
his barbarian allies. The ambassadors proceeded, as 
their instructions directed, to Carthage. Hanno, the 
leader of the peace party, pleaded earnestly with the 
Senate to yield to the demands of Rome. He ad- 
vised that the army should be withdrawn from before 
Saguntum, that compensation should be made to that 
town, and even that Hannibal should be surrendered 
as having broken the treaty. But he scarcely found 
a seconder, and the ambassadors were sent away with 
a refusal. 

The siege meanwhile was being pressed on with 
vigour. The garrison hastily built a new wall at the 
spot where the breach had been made, but this was 
easily thrown down ; and a party of the besiegers now 
established itself actually within the city. The defence 
was still continued, but it was manifestly hopeless. 
Hannibal was willing to give terms. The Saguntines 
might withdraw with their wives and children, each 
person to have two garments, but leaving all their 
property behind. While this offer was being dis- 
cussed in an irregular assembly, for a number of 
people had crowded into the Senate-house, some of 
the chief citizens gradually withdrew. They lit a 
great fire, and collecting all the public treasure and 
all the private property on which they could lay their 
hands, flung it into the flames, and then, with 
desperate resolution, leaped into them themselves. 
While this was going on, the Carthaginians forced 



184 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

their way into the town. Every grown-up male was 
slain. The booty was enormous. Enough was left, 
besides all that the soldiers took, to bring a great sum 
into the p.ublic treasury. 

There could be now no doubt that war would 
follow. The Romans, indeed, made all preparations 
for it. Still, anxious, it would seem, to do all things 
in order, they sent another embassy to Carthage. 
The envoys were instructed to put to the Carthaginian 
Senate the simple question, " Was it by the order of 
the government that Hannibal attacked Saguntum ? " 
The Carthaginian Senate refused to give a direct 
answer. The speaker who represented their opinion 
pleaded that the regular treaty between Carthage and 
Rome made no mention of Saguntum, and that they 
could not recognize a private agreement made with 
Hasdrubal. " Upon this," says Livy, " the Roman 
gathered his robe into a fold and said, 'Here we bring 
you peace and war : take which you please.' In- 
stantly there arose a fierce shout, ' Give us which you 
please ! ' The Roman, in reply, shook out the fold, 
and spoke again, ' I give you war.' The answer from 
all was, ' We accept it ; and in the spirit with which 
we accept it, will we wage it.' " 

Thus beecan the Second Punic War. 



VI. 

FROM THE EBRO TO ITALY. 

After tne capture of Saguntum, Hannibal went into 
winter quarters at New Carthage. He gave a furlough 
to any of his Spanish troops that wished to visit their 
homes. " Come back," he said, " in early spring, and 
I will be your leader in a war from which both the 
glory and the gain will be immense." The winter he 
spent in maturing his great plan, which was nothing 
less than to invade Italy. Carthage, he knew, had 
been brought to the brink of destruction by being 
attacked at home ; and this because her subjects had 
been raised against her. Rome, too, had subjects who 
were doubtless ill-content with her rule. Within the 
last hundred years she had added the greater part of 
Italy to her Empire. It was in Italy that he hoped 
to find his best allies. We shall see how far his hopes 
were fulfilled, how far they were disappointed. 

In the spring he made a disposal of his forces. 
Some fifteen thousand, chiefly Spaniards, he sent into 
Africa. With his brother Hasdrubal he left an army 
of between twelve and thirteen thousand infantry, two 
thousand five hundred cavalry, five hundred slingers, 
and twenty-one elephants, besides a fleet of fifty-seven 
ships, chiefly of the largest size. His policy in making 



t86 the story of c art h age. 

these arrangements was to garrison Africa with Spanish, 
and Spain with African troops. The force with which 
he himself crossed the Ebro consisted of ninety thou- 
sand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry. 

To cross the Ebro, which was still nominally the 
boundary between Rome and Carthage, was formally 
to commence hostilities. On the night before he 
made the passage, Hannibal, who had lately returned 
from a solemn visit to the temple of Melcarth at 
Gades, had a dream. He saw a youth of godlike 
shape, who said, "Jupiter has sent me to lead your 
army into Italy. Follow me, but look not behind." 
Hannibal followed trembling, but could not, after a 
while, keep his eyes from looking behind. He saw a 
serpent of marvellous size moving onwards, and de- 
stroying the forest as it went. When he asked what 
this might mean, his guide answered, " This is the de- 
vastation of Italy. Go on and ask no more, but leave 
the designs of fate in darkness." 

Hannibal's numbers, indeed, were much diminished 
before he reached the foot of the Alps, which was to 
be the first stage in his journey. He had to conquer 
the country between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and 
leave a large force to hold it ; and he felt it wise to 
dismiss to their homes a number of men who were 
unwilling or afraid to go on with him. It was with 
fifty thousand foot and nine thousand horse that he 
crossed the Pyrenees. From the Pyrenees he marched 
with little opposition to the Rhone. His route seems 
to have led him to Nemausus (now Nismes), while the 
point at which he touched the river was probably 
Roquemaure. Polybius describes it as being four 



Jl 



PASSAGE OF THE RHONE. 187 

days' march from the mouth. He found the further 
bank occupied by a strong force of the neighbouring 
Gauls. His guides informed him that some twenty- 
five miles higher up the river there was an island, and 
that when the stream w^as divided it was shallow and 
comparatively easy to cross. Accordingly he sent 
Hanno, son of Bomilcar, with a party of his army to 
cross at this place, and to take the enemy in the rear. 
Hanno found no one to oppose him. His Spanish 
troops, men accustomed to the \vater, put their clothes 
and arms on bladders, and swam to the further bank, 
pushing these before them ; the Africans, who had not 
had the same experience, crossed upon rafts. Han- 
nibal meanwhile was making his own preparations for 
the passage. He had collected from friendly tribes 
on the right bank of the liver a number of small boats. 
These he used for his infantry. Larger vessels and 
rafts constructed by his own men were reserved for 
the cavalry, and were put higher up the stream, to 
break the force of the current against the lighter craft. 
When all was ready he gave the signal to start. The 
enemy, though startled by his boldness in thus crossing 
in face of their opposition, would doubtless have stood 
firm, and, perhaps, successfully resisted him, but for the 
force which had already made the passage higher up 
the river. At the critical moment they saw behind 
them the smoke of the fires which, by a concerted plan 
Hanno and his infantry had lighted. They found 
themselves taken in the rear, a danger which no un- 
disciplined troops can brave. Hannibal, familiar with 
this fact, pushed boldly on. He was himself in one of 
the foremost boats, and, leaping to shore, led his men 



100 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

to the charge. The Gauls broke and fled almost with- 
out striking a blow. He had still to get his elephants 
across. A large raft was covered with earth and 
moored firmly to the bank, and to this again a smaller 
raft, similarly disguised, was attached. The elephants, 
led by two females, were taken first upon the larger, 
then upon the smaller raft, and, fancying themselves 
still upon dry ground, made no objection. Then the 
smaller raft was detached, and propelled across the 
stream. The great beasts were frightened when they 
found themselves afloat, but their very terror kept 
them quiet ; and two that plunged into the water, 
though their unfortunate drivers were drowned, got 
safely to the opposite shore. 

Hannibal marched up the left bank of the Rhone 
till he reached the Isere. Here he made a valuable 
ally in a chief of the Allobroges, whom he supported 
against a younger brother that was claiming the 
throne. This prince supplied his army with stores of 
all kinds, among which shoes are especially mentioned, 
and escorted him as far as the foot of the Alps. 

But, it will be asked, were the Romans doing 
nothing to defend themselves against this invasion ? 
They had other work on their hands, for they were at 
war with the Gauls in what is now Northern Italy, 
but was then called Cisalpine or Hither Gaul. The 
first armies they could raise were sent against them ; 
but Publius Cornelius Scipio (a name of which we 
shall hear much hereafter) was despatched with a 
force to the mouths of the Rhone. Had he moved 
up the river at once he might have hindered Hanni- 
bal's pass.age, but he sat still. A proof that the 



ROUTE OVER THE ALPS. 189 

Carthaginians were near was soon given him. Han- 
nibal had sent a squadron of African horse to recon- 
noitre, and this fell in with some cavalry which Scipio 
had sent out for the same purpose. A sharp skirmish 
followed. It was the first occasion on which the two 
enemies crossed swords, and the Romans won the day. 
When his cavalry had returned, Scipio marched up 
the river ; but he found Hannibal gone, and did not 
think it well to follow him. Returning to the sea, he 
sent the greater part of his army under his brother 
Cnaeus into Spain, and sailed back with the rest to 
Italy. This policy of strengthening the Roman force 
in Spain, in face of what seemed a greater danger 
nearer home, was masterly, and was to bear good 
fruit in after time. 

Hannibal's route across the Alps has been the sub- 
ject of much controversy, into wliich I do not intend 
to enter. The view which seems to me the most pro- 
bable is that he marched up the left bank of the Rhone 
as far as Vienne ; then, leaving the river, struck across 
the level country of Upper Dauphiny, and met the 
river again at St. Genix. Thence he marched up the 
valley of the Upper Isere, and crossed by the pass of 
the Little St. Bernard, descending into the Valley of 
Aosta. 

The dangers and difficulties of the passage are 
described in vivid language by the historians, and 
indeed they must have been terrible. To take an 
army, with all its stores and baggage, the horses, and 
the elephants, across the Alps, was indeed a wonder- 
ful task ; still more wonderful when we consider how 
late it was in the year when the attempt was made 



igo THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

It was almost the end of October before the summit 
of the pass was reached, and the seasons, there is 
Httle reason to doubt, were colder then than they are 
now. 

If Hannibal had only had natural obstacles to con- 
tend with he would have had plenty to do; but he 
found the mountain tribes fiercely hostile. They 
resented the intrusion of this formidable force into 
their country, and they saw an excellent opportunity 
for plundering. Their attacks began as soon as he 
commenced the ascent, and were continued till he 
had nearly reached the highest point. The first stage 
of the march was at the pass which leads to the 
Lake of Bourget. Every mile of this had to be won 
by hard fighting. The road was steep and narrow, 
and the barbarians attacked the army from points of 
vantage. It was only Hannibal's foresight in occupy- 
ing a still higher position, which the enemy had left 
during the night, that prevented a most serious loss. 
When the plain at the upper end of the pass was 
reached, the disciplined army had nothing to fear. 
The mountaineers' fortified town was stormed, and 
much of the property that had been lost was regained. 
The next three days' march was made without oppo- 
sition ; and then the mountain tribes, seeing that force 
had failed, tried what treachery could do. Their chiefs 
came into the camp, offered hostages, sent in supplies, 
and promised to guide the army by the best and 
shortest route. Hannibal did not wholly trust them, 
and took precautions against a sudden attack. But 
he allowed the guides to lead him into a dangerous 
defile, where the longer road would have been safer. 



ROCKS SPLIT WITH VINEGAR. 193 

At the most critical point of the march the enemy 
attacked, rolling down great rocks or sending showers 
of stones from the cliffs. The loss was great, but the 
army struggled through. The elephants, difficult 
as they must have been to drive up those narrow 
and slippery roads, were of great service. The moun- 
taineers were* terrified at the sight of them, and 
wherever they were visible did not venture to 
approach. 

The story of how Hannibal split with fire and 
vinegar the rocks which his men could neither remove 
or climb over is so famous that it cannot be omitted, 
though it is not easy to imagine how the vinegar 
came to be there. Had his foresight, wonderful as it 
was, extended so far as to provide this most unlikely 
kind of store ? But without further criticism I shall 
quote Livy's own words. " Having to cut into the 
stone, they heaped up a huge pile of wood from great 
trees in the neighbourhood, which they had felled and 
lopped. As soon as there was strength enough in 
the wind to create a blaze they lighted the pile, 
and melted the rocks, as they heated, by pouring 
vinegar upon them. The burning stone was then 
cleft open with iron implements." 

Livy represents this incident as occurring in the 
course of the descent. By that time the work, of 
course, was really done. The army took nine days, 
we are told, to make its way to the top. That once 
reached, they were permitted to rest two days. 
When they resumed their march a fall of snow almost 
reduced them to despair. But Hannibal told them 
to keep up their courage. He would show them the 



E^ 



194 '^'^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

end of their toils. And indeed, a little further on, 
they came to a point from which they could look 
down on the rich plains of Italy. " You are climb- 
ing," he cried to his men, " not the walls of Italy only, 
but of Rome itself. What remains will be a smooth 
descent ; after one or, at the most, two battles, we 
shall have the capital of Italy in our hands." 

Six days sufficed for the descent. It was more 
than four months since Hannibal had started from 
New Carthage. His losses on the way had been 
terrible. He brought down with him into the plains 
of Italy not more than twenty thousand infantry 
(three-fifths of them Africans and the remainder 
Spaniards) and six thousand cavalry ; and he had 
left thirty-three thousand, most of them victims of 
disease and cold, upon his road. This was the force, 
if we are to reckon only his regular troops, with 
which he was to undertake the conquest of Italy. 
The numbers rest on the authority of a Roman who 
was a prisoner in the Carthaginian camp, and who 
heard them from the lips of the great general himself 



VII. 

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 

Hannibal gave a few days' rest to his troops. 
They greatly needed it, for their toils and sufferings 
had given them, we are told, a look that was " scarcely 
human." Then he struck his first blow. If he was 
to succeed he must have the people of the Italian 
peninsula on his side against Rome. In one way 
or another they must be made to join him. Accord- 
ingly, when the Taurini, a tribe of Gauls, refused 
his proposals of alliance — they were at feud with 
another tribe which was friendly to him — he attacked 
and stormed their stronghold.^ After this almost all 
the tribes of Hither Gaul joined him. They furnished 
him with supplies and with a number of excellent 
recruits. 

Meanwhile Publius Scipio had landed his army at 
Pisa, had marched over the Apennines, and, crossing 
the Po at Placentia, was advancing against the in- 
vaders. Hannibal scarcely expected to meet him so 
soon ; Scipio had never believed that the Carthaginian 
army would be able to make the passage of the Alps. 
Both made ready for battle. Among the preparations 

• ' Probably the town afterwards called Augusta Taurinoru??i and now 
known as Turin, 



ig6 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

of Hannibal was a spectacle which he exhibited to 
his army. Some of the mountaineers who had been 
taken prisoners in crossing the Alps were matched to 
fight against each other. The conquerors were to 
have a set of arms and their liberty ; the conquered 
would, at all events, be released from their chains by 
death. All the prisoners eagerly accepted the offer 
when it was made to them, and fought with the 
greatest courage, whilst those who had not been 
chosen looked envyingly on. Hannibal meant the 
exhibition as a parable to his own men. "' This," he 
said, " is exactly your situation. You have this same 
choice — a rich reward and liberty on the one side, and 
death on the other. See how gladly these barbarians 
accept it. Do you be as cheerful and as brave as they 
are." 

Scipio crossed the Ticinus by a bridge which he 
had built for the purpose. Both armies were now on 
the north bank of the Po, the Carthaginians moving 
eastward and having the river on their right, the 
Romans coming westward to meet them. At the end 
of the second day's march both encamped, and on 
the morning of the third the cavalry of both advanced, 
Hannibal and Scipio commanding in person. The 
Romans had their light-armed troops and their Gallic 
horsemen in front, and the rest of their cavalry in the 
second line Hannibal had skilfully arranged his heavy 
cavalry in a solid body in the centre ; while the light and 
active African troopers, men who rode their horses with- 
out a bit, were on either wing. The Roman light-armed, 
after a single discharge of their javelins, retired hastily 
through the spaces of the squadrons behind theifii, 



SEPTENTRIONALIS 




SCIPIO RETIRES TO THE TREBIA. igg 

Between the heavy cavalry on both sides there was 
an obstinate struggle, the Romans having somewhat 
the advantage. But the clouds of Africans had out- 
flanked the Roman line, and had fallen first on their 
light-armed troops and then on the rear of the heavy 
cavalry. A general rout followed. Not the least 
serious disaster of the day, as we shall see, was that 
Scipio himself received a disabling wound. Indeed, 
it was only the bravery of his son, a youth of 
seventeen, of whom we shall hear again, that saved 
his life. A body of horsemen formed round the 
consul, and escorted him off the field. 

Hannibal waited awhile to see whether his antago- 
nists meant to risk a general engagement. As they 
made no sign, he advanced, and finding that they had 
left their camp, crossed first the Ticinus, and after- 
wards the Po, where he captured six hundred men 
who had been left behind by the Romans. Scipio 
was now encamped under the walls of Placentia. 
Hannibal, after vainly offering him battle, took up a 
position about six miles off. The first result of his 
late victory was the crowding into his camp of the 
Gallic chiefs from the south side of the Po. Before 
long he had a stronger proof of the charge of feeling 
in this people. A Gallic contingent that was acting 
with the Roman army left the camp at night, carry- 
ing with them the heads of a number of their comrades 
whom they had massacred, and took service with him. 
Scipio was so alarmed by this general movement 
among the Gauls that he left his camp, and moved 
southward to the Trebia, where he could find a strong 
position and friendly neighbours. Hannibal imme- 



200 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

diately sent his African horse in pursuit ; and these, 
if they had not stopped to plunder and burn the 
deserted camp, might have greatly damaged the 
retreating army. As it was, all but a few stragglers 
had crossed the Trebia before the Africans came up. 
Scipio took up a strong position on the hills, and 
resolved to wait till his colleague Sempronius, who 
was on his way northward, should join him. Hannibal, 
who had followed with his whole force, pitched his 
camp about five miles to the north. He had received 
meanwhile a most welcome gain in the surrender of 
Clastidium, a fortress near Placentia, where the Romans 
had accumulated great stores of corn. The place was 
given up to him by the commandant, a native of 
Brundusium, who received, it is said, four hundred 
gold pieces as the price of his treachery. 

It was not long before Sempronius and his army 
arrived. The numbers of the Romans were of course 
greatly increased by this reinforcement ; but the result 
was really disastrous. Scipio was a skilful general ; 
Sempronius was nothing but a brave man, whom the 
accident of being consul for the year had put in com- 
mand of the army. And, unfortunately, Scipio was 
disabled by the wound which he had received at 
Ticinus. His colleague could not believe but that the 
Romans must win a pitched battle, if the enemy should 
be rash enough to fight one ; and he was anxious to 
get the credit of the victory for himself If he was 
to do this he must force a battle at once. Winter was 
coming on, and before the beginning of another cam- 
paign he would be out of office. 

If he had any doubt about success, it was dispersed 



SEMPRONIUS EAGER TO FIGHT. 201 

by the result of a skirmish which took place between 
the Roman and Carthaginian cavalry, Hannibal had 
sent some horsemen, Africans and Gauls, to plunder 
the lands of a tribe which had made terms with Rome. 
As these were returning, laden with booty, some 
Roman squadrons fell upon them, and drove them to 
their camp with considerable loss. 

Sempronius was now determined to fight, and 
Scipio could not hinder him. As Hannibal was at 
least equally anxious for a battle, which was as much 
to his interest as it was against the interest of his 
antagonists, the conflict was not long delayed. Sem- 
pronius had forty thousand men under his command, 
and Hannibal's army, reinforced as it had been by the 
Gauls, was probably equal. 

Hannibal's first care was to place an ambuscade of 
two thousand men, picked with the greatest care, in 
some brushwood near the river. His brother Mago 
had chosen a hundred foot-soldiers and as many 
troopers ; and each of these again had chosen nine 
comrades. They were to play, we shall see, an im- 
portant part in the battle. Early the next morning 
he sent his African cavalry across the river, with 
orders to skirmish up to the Roman camp, and pro- 
voke an engagement. Sempronius eagerly took the 
bait. He sent out of his camp, first his cavalry, then 
his light-armed, and finally his legions, and he sent 
them before they had been able to take any food. It 
was now far on in the winter ; the snow was falling 
fast, and the Trebia, swollen by rain, was running 
high between its banks. The water was up to the 
men's breasts, as they struggled, cold and hungry, 



202 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

across it. The Carthaginians, on the other hand, 
had had their usual meal, and had warmed them- 
selves before fires. With ample time on his hands 
and perfectly at his ease, Hannibal drew up his army. 
Twenty thousand infantry, Africans, Spaniards, and 
Gauls, formed the centre ; the cavalry, numbering ten 
thousand, were on the wings, with the elephants in 
front of them. The light-armed troops had been sent 
on in advance to support the African horse. The 
Roman line of battle was similarly arranged. 

And now again, as before at thq Ticinus, the weak- 
ness of the Romans in cavalry was fatal. This arm 
was inferior both in numbers and in' quality. The 
Carthaginian horse charged on both wings, and 
routed their opponents almost without a struggle. 
The flanks of the great body of infantry which formed 
the Roman centre were thus uncovered, and were 
exposed to fierce attacks both from the cavalry and 
from the light- armed troops of the enemy. Still 
they held their own for a long time with all the courage 
and tenacity of Romans. But everything was against 
them, and when Mago's ambuscade leapt out from 
the watercourse, in which it had been hiding, and fell 
furiously upon their rear, the day was lost. If any- 
thing was still wanting to complete their rout, it was 
found in the elephants, strange and terrible creatures 
which few of the Romans or their allies had ever seen 
before. The rear of the army suffered worst. Indeed 
it was almost destroyed. The front ranks cut their 
way through the Gallic and African infantry that was 
opposed to them, and made their way to Placentia. 
These numbered about ten thousand. Some stragglers 



THE CARTHAGINIANS VICTORIOUS. 205 

from the rest of the army afterwards joined them. 
Others made their way back into the "amp, for the 
conquerors did not pursue beyond the river. But it 
is probable that the Romans lost nearly half their 
force in killed, prisoners, and missing. 

The Carthaginians did not win their victory without 
some loss. But the slain were chiefl}' from among 
the Gauls, whom Hannibal could most easily spare. 
His best infantry, the Spaniards and Africans, suffered 
little, except indeed from the cold — which the latter, 
of course, felt very much. The cold, too, was fatal to 
all the elephants but one. 

With the battle of the Trebia the first campaign of 
the Second Punic War came to an end. 




-VIII. 



TRASUMENNUS. 



Hannibal spent the winter among the Ligurian 
Gauls. They had welcomed him among them as the 
successful enemy of Rome, but grew weary, we are 
told, of his presence, when they found that they had 
to support his army. He was even in danger of 
being assassinated, and had to protect himself by 
frequently changing his dress and even his wig. The 
winter was scarcely over when he took the field, 
making his way through the marshes of the Arno 
into the heart of Etruria. This way was the shortest 
that he could have taken, and by following it he 
avoided the Roman arniies that were watching for him. 
But it cost him and his army dear. The floods were 
out everywhere, and not a spot of dry ground could 
be found on which his men could rest themselves. 
All that they could do was to pile up the baggage in 
the water and to rest upon that, or even upon the 
heaps of dead horses. Weary, without food, and 
without sleep, for this was their worst trouble, num- 
bers perished on the march. Hannibal himself, who 
rode upon the one elephant that was left, to keep 
himself as far as possible above the water, was 
attacked with ophthalmia, and lost the sight of one of 



LAKE TRASUMENNUS. 20J 

his eyes. When he reached the higher ground he 
gave his troops a short rest, and then marched boldly 
towards Rome, wasting the country, which was one 
of the richest parts of Italy, most cruelly as he went. 
One of the Roman Consuls, Flaminius, was at 
Arretium with about thirty thousand men ; the other 
was at Ariminum on the east coast with as many 
more. Hannibal ventured to leave them in his rear, 
and now there was no army between him and Rome. 
Flaminius, who had found it hard to sit still and see 
the country of his allies wasted with fire and sword 
before his eyes, could not allow Rome itself to be 
attacked without striking a blow for it. He broke 
up his camp, and followed the Carthaginians. This 
was exactly what Hannibal expected and wished. 
And he laid an ambush for his pursuer. The road 
from. Cortona to Perusia, along which he was march- 
ing, passed close to the northern shore of the Lake 
Trasumennus. Near the north-west corner of the 
lake the hills on either side of this lake approach 
close to each other ; at the north-east corner again 
there is a still narrower passage formed by the hills 
on the north, and the lake itself on the south. Be- 
tween these two is a level plain, somewhat like a bow 
in shape, if we suppose the edge of the water to be 
the string, and the retreating hills the bow itself. In 
front of the hills which commanded the eastern end 
of the pass Hannibal posted his African and Spanish 
troops ; and here he himself remained. At the end 
of the pass itself, behind some rising ground which 
conveniently concealed them, he stationed his Gallic 
cavalry. The rest of his army he placed on the 



208 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

further slopes of the hills which enclosed the plain 
upon the north. 

Flaminius reached the western end of the lake at 
sunset, and pitched his camp there for the night. 
The next morning, while the light was still dim, and 
without, it seems, attempting to reconnoitre his route, 
he continued his march. When his whole army had 
passed through the defile into the plain beyond, 
Hannibal gave the signal which had been arranged, 
and the Numidian cavalry with the Gallic infantry 
descended from the hills, and occupied the western 
outlet. The Roman army was hemmed in. They 
were surrounded, too, with mist, which rose from the 
lake and lay thick upon the level ground, while the 
sunshine was bright upon the slopes down which the 
enemy was moving to the attack. Before they could 
form their ranks in order of battle, almost before they 
could draw their swords, the enemy was upon them. 

Flaminius did his best, but it was very little that 
he could do. There was no scope for a general's 
skill, even if he had possessed it. It was a soldiers' 
battle, where every man had to fight for himself ; but 
the soldiers of Rome, newly recruited ploughmen 
and vinedressers, were scarcely a match for the 
veterans of Carthage, and were now taken at a 
terrible disadvantage. Still, for a time, they held 
their ground. For three hours the battle raged, so 
fiercely that none of the combatants felt the shock 
of an earthquake which that day laid more than one 
Italian city in ruins. Then the Consul fell. Con- 
spicuous in his splendid arms, he had kept up the 
Roman battle, till one of Hannibal's troopers, an 



SLAUGHTER OF THE ROMANS. 209 

Insubrian Gaul, recognizing his face (for Flaminius 
had conquered the Insubrians eight years before), 
fiercely charged him. " See ! " cried the man to his 
comrades, " this is he who slaughtered our legions 
and laid waste our fields. I will offer him a sacrifice 
to the shades of my countrymen." The Consul's 
armour-bearer threw himself in the way, but was 
struck down ; and Ducarius (for that was the trooper's 
name) ran the Consul through with his lance. Then 
the Romans ceased to resist, even as the English 
ceased at Senlac when Harold was slain. Some 
sought to escape by the hills, others waded out into 
the lake, which is shallow to some distance from the 
shore. Men weighted with heavy armour could not 
hope to escape by swimming ; yet some were 
desperate enough to try it. These were either 
drowned in the deeper water, or struggling back to 
the shallows were slaughtered in 'crowds by the 
cavalry, which had now ridden into the water. About 
six thousand of the vanguard cut their way through 
the enemy at the eastern end of the pass, and halted 
on the high ground beyond to watch the result of the 
battle. When the mist lifted, as the sun gained 
strength, from hill and plain, they saw that their 
comrades were hopelessly defeated, and, taking up 
their standards, hurried away. But without pro- 
visions, and not knowing which way to turn, they 
surrendered themselves next day to Hannibal. About 
ten thousand contrived to escape from the field of 
battle. These made the best of their way to Rome. 
Nearly fifteen thousand fell on the field or in the 
flight. The Carthaginians lost two thousand and 



210 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

five hundred, a proof that for a time at least the 
Romans had not sold their lives for nothing. The 
body of the Consul was never found, though Hannibal, 
anxious to give so brave a foe an honourable burial, 
ordered a careful search to be made for it. 

A few days afterwards Hannibal had another suc- 
cess. Maharbal surprised a body of cavalry which 
Servilius was sending to help his colleague, killed 
half, and took the other half prisoners. He then 
marched south, but not, as one might expect, on 
Rome, though it had no army to protect it. He was 
afraid of undertaking the siege of such a city ; indeed, 
/ when he attempted to take Spoletium, a colony, or 

military settlement, in Umbria, he was beaten back 
with great loss. He marched on in a south-easterly 
direction, wasting the country as he went, and gather- 
ing an immense booty, till he came to the eastern 
sea near a town called Hadria. There he took a few 
days rest and refreshed his army, for both men and 
horses were terribly exhausted with toil and privation. 
We are told that the horses, which were covered in 
ulcers, were bathed in old wine, and that this treat- 
ment cured them. From this place, too, he sent 
despatches to Carthage with an account of what he 
had done. They were the first that he had written 
since he crossed the Ebro. Soldiers say that the most 
dangerous thing that a general can do is to cut him- 
self off from his base, to launch himself into the air, 
as it is sometimes called — that is, to leave nothing be- 
hind him on which he can fall back. Hannibal had 
done this so boldly that he had never been able even 
to send a messenger back with a letter. Now he was 



HANNIBALS POLICY. 211 

at the sea, and letters could be sent to and fro without 
hindrance. He is also said at this time to have armed 
some of his African infantry with arms of the Roman 
fashion. From Hadria he moved still southward, 
ravaging the eastern part of Italy as far down as 
Apulia, but always showing that it was with Rome 
and not with the Italian subjects of Rome that he 
was waging war. Any Roman citizen, or child of a 
Roman citizen that was of age to carry arms, he 
ordered to be slain. ^ The Italians that fell into his 
hands he not only spared, but treated with the utmost 
kindness. 

' So goes the Roman story, but the frequent mention of Roman 
prisoners seems to prove that it was false. 




TX. 

FABIUS AND HIS TACTICS 

At Rome, after the first feeling of grief and terror 
had passed away, everything was being done to carry 
on the war with vigour. No one spoke of surrender, 
or even of peace. The chief command of all the 
armies of the State was given to a veteran soldier, 
Ouintus Fabius Maximus by name, who had won the 
honour of a triumph nearly twenty years before. 
Fabius' first act was to consult the books of the Sibyl.^ 
They were found to prescribe various acts of worship 
of the Gods, as the offering of prayers and sacrifices, 
the building of temples, and the celebrating public 
games. These were either done at once or promised 
for some future time. The Dictator (for this was his 
title) then ordered the levying of two new legions, 
and of a force which was to defend the city and man 
the fleet. He also directed that everything in the 
line of Hannibal's march should be destroyed. The 
Carthaginians were to find nothing but a desert 
wherever they came. He then marched north. At 

' Books of prophecy, said to have been written by one of the Sibyls, 
sold to Tarquinius Priscus, fifth king of Rome, and afterwards preserved 
in the temple of Jupiter of the Capitol, to be consulted in any great need 
of the State. See "The Story of Rome," p. 59. 



HANNIBAL A MASTER OF STRATAGEM. 213 

Ocriculum in Umbria he met Servilius, who was on 
his way to Rome, and took over his legions from him. 
Servihus he sent to command the fleet, which was 
being got ready at Ostia for the defence of the ItaHan 
seas. He himself, with an army numbering about 
fifty thousand men, followed in pursuit of the 
enemy. Hannibal found that he gained no friends in 
Apulia, and marched westward into Samnium, which, 
less than a hundred years before, had been the fiercest 
enemy of Rome. But here again he met with no 
success in making strife between Rome and its allies. 
He moved on into what was, perhaps, the very richest 
part of Italy, the great Falernian plain, where wines 
were grown that were to become famous over all the 
world. Fabius still followed him, watching every 
movement, cutting off stragglers, and harassing him 
in every way that he could devise, but always refusing 
a battle. When he saw his enemy below him in the 
Falernian plain — for Fabius kept his own army on the 
hills — he believed that he had him in a trap. To the 
north, the passes into Latium and the way to Rome 
were barred ; the sea was in front of him ; and to the 
south the deep stream of the Volturnus. On the east 
the hills, with their passes held by Roman troops, 
seemed to shut off his escape. Then Hannibal showed 
what a master of stratagem he was. He not only 
escaped, but carried off the booty which he had 
collected. His plan was this. About two thousand 
oxen were chosen out of the vast herds which had 
been collected out of the plundered districts. To 
their horns were fastened bundles of dry twigs. Then 
one day, as the dusk of evening came on, he silently 



214 ^^-S STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

struck his camp, and moved eastward towards the 
hills, the oxen being driven a little in front of the 
vanguard. When the army reached the foot of the 
hills it was dark ; and then Hannibal ordered the 
bundles to be lighted. The drivers of the oxen 
started them up the slope of the hills ; the animals, 
maddened by fear and pain — for the light flashed all 
about them, and the heat reached the flesh at the 
roots of their horns — rushed wildly on. The four 
thousand Romans who had been posted to guard the 
principal pass were dismayed at the sight. What it 
meant they could not understand ; but that it meant 
danger they were sure. Probably they fancied that 
they were being surrounded — for this is always the 
first fear of all but the very best and bravest troops. 
Anyhow they left their post, and made for the heights. 
Fabius, in his camp, saw the strange sight, and was 
equally puzzled ; nor did he venture out till it was 
light.i Meanwhile Hannibal had quietly m irched 
his army through the pass, taking all his plunder with 
him, and pitched his camp next day at Allifae, on the 
other side of the hills. Fabius followed him. He 
marched northwards through Samnium, as far as the 
country of the Peligni, ravaging as he went. Fabius 
still moved along, keeping his army between him 
and Rome. 

' " This story of Livy," says Niebuhr, " represents the Romans in a 
foolish Hght. The truth is told by Polybius. Nothing was more com- 
mon among the ancients than the march by night with lanterns ; and 
when the Roman outposts saw the lights between themselves and the 
unoccupied district, they thought that the Carthaginians were forcing 
their way, and quickly advanced towards the supposed danger to shut 
the road against the enemy " (Lecture Ixxiv.). 



FABIUS AND MINUCIUS. 21$ 

The effect of Hannibal's escape was twofold. Not 
only did he get out of a difficult position, carrying 
the greater part of his plunder with him, but he 
made it very hard for Fabius to carry out his policy 
of delay. This policy of course had many enemies. 
The allies, who saw their country ravaged without 
being able to strike a blow for it, were furious ; and 
the wealthy Romans, whose estates were suffering in 
the same way, were loud in their complaints. And 
Hannibal's cunning plan of leaving Fabius' estates 
untouched, while all the neighbourhood was plun- 
dered, increased their anger. This change of feeling 
soon became evident. Fabius had to go to Rome on 
business for a time, and left his army in the charge of 
Minucius, Master of the Horse (this was the title of 
the Dictator's second-in-command), with strict orders 
not to fight. Minucius did fight, and won something 
like a little victory. When news of his success came 
to Rome, the opponents of Fabius persuaded the 
people to divide the army, and give the command of 
one half to the Dictator, and of the other to the 
Master of the Horse. 

There were now two Roman armies encamped 
about a mile apart. Hannibal, who knew what 
had happened, immediately took advantage of the 
situation. Minucius, if he wished to satisfy his friends 
was bound to fight, and Hannibal soon gave him 
what looked like a favourable opportunity. He occu- 
pied some rising ground between his own camp and 
that of the Romans with what looked like a small 
force. The Romans hastened to dislodge it. But 
there were five thousand men in ambush, who, when 



2ID THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the fighting had been going on for sonne time, fell 
upon the Roman rear. This gave way, and another 
great disaster would have been the result, had not 
Fabius, who was on the watch, led out his troops, and 
changed the fortunes of the day. After all no great 
harm was done ; and there was this good result, that 
Minucius confessed his error, and gave up his com- 
mand. The rest of the year passed without any 
further disasters, except that the Consul Servilius, 
landing on the coast of Africa, and ravaging the 
country, was attacked by the Carthaginians, and lost 
a thousand men. 

Hannibal spent the winter at Geronium, in the 
north of Apulia, It was a mountainous country ; and 
it was close to the sea. (This part of Apulia, indeed, 
is like an elbow projecting out into, the Adriatic.) 
He had ample supplies, and he was in communication 
with Carthage. Probably new troops were sent to 
him. Anyhow, when the next year came (216) he 
was stronger than ever. It was late in the spring 
when he took the field. His first movement Avas to 
march round the Roman army, which had been 
watching him during the winter, and to seize a great 
magazine of stores which the enemy had collected. 
It was still his policy to provoke them to fight a 
battle, and this successful movement helped him. 
The Romans had gathered a great force, but found it 
difficult to feed it. They were afraid, too, lest they 
should lose their allies, if they allowed Hannibal to 
march up and down through Italy and plunder as he 
pleased. And the party of fighting had had a great 
success at the elections. C. Terentius Varro, a man 



J 



VARRO AND PAULLUS IN COMMAND. 2.17 

of the people, after loudly proclaiming that the nobles 
were prolonging the war for their own purposes, 
had been chosen Consul by an immense majority. 
It was resolved to fight, but not to do so till the 
newly-levied legions should have joined the army of 
the year before. This was done about the beginning 
of June ; and the whole army, now numbering about 
ninety thousand men, marched in pursuit of Hannibal, 
who was gathering in the early harvests on the sea- 
board of Apulia. The two consuls (Varro's colleague 
was a noble, ^milius Paullus by name) had command 
on alternate days, ^milius, an experienced soldier, 
was doubtful of the result of a battle, and anxious to 
put it off. Varro, on the other hand, was confident 
and eager, and on his first day of command brought 
matters to a crisis by taking up a position between 
Hannibal and the sea. 




X. 



CANN-^. 



The great battle was still delayed for a few days. 
But when Hannibal's cavalry cut off the Roman 
watering -parties from the river, and left the army 
without water at the very height of an Italian summer, 
the impatience of the soldiers could not be restrained. 
On the morning of the ist of August,^ Varro, who 
that day was in command, hoisted on his tent the red 
flag as a signal of battle. He then ordered the army 
to cross the river Aufidus, and to draw up their lines 
on the right bank. Hannibal at once took up the 
challenge, and fording the stream at two places, drew 
up his army opposite to the enemy. . His army was 
but half as large ; if he should be defeated his doom 
was certain ; but he was confident and cheerful. 
Plutarch tells us a story — one of the very few which 
show us something of the man rather than of the 
general — of his behaviour on the morning of the battle. 
He seems to have been one of the soldiers whose 
spirits rise in danger, and who become cheerful, and 
even gay, when others are most serious. " One of his 
chief officers, Gisco by name, said to him : ' I am 

' The Roman reckoning was six or seven weeks in advance of the 
real year, and the time was really about midsummer. 



HANNIBAL'S ARMY. 



219 



astonished at the numbers of the enemy.' Hannibal 
smiled and said : ' Yes, Cisco ; but there is something 
more wonderful still.' ' What is that ? ' said he. ' That 
though there are so many of them, not one of them is 
called Cisco.' The answer was so unexpected that 
everybody laughed." And he goes on to tell us that 
the Carthaginians were mightily encouraged to see 
this confident temper in their chief. 

The Aufidus, bending first to the south, and then 
again, after flowing nearly eastward for a short dis- 
tance, to the north, makes a loop. This loop was 
occupied by Hannibal's army. The left wing con- 
sisted of eight thousand heavy cavalry, Spaniards and 
Cauls. Hasdrubal (who must not be confounded 
with Hannibal's brother of the same name) was in 
command. They had the river on their left flank and 
on their right. Behind them was one half of the 
African infantry. " One might have thought them a 
Roman army," says Livy, " for Hannibal had armed 
them with the spoils of Trebia and Trasumennus." 
Next in the line, but somewhat in advance so as to 
be about on a level with the heavy cavalry, were 
posted the Spanish and Callic infantry, with their 
companies alternately arranged, and under the imme- 
diate command of Hannibal himself and his brother 
Mago. These troops were still armed in their native 
fashion. The Spaniards wore white linen tunics, 
dazzlingly bright, and edged with purple. Their chief 
weapon was the sword which they used, of a short 
and handy size, and with which they were accustomed 
to thrust rather than strike. Nevertheless it was 
fitted for a blow, for it had, of course, an edge. The 



220 THE STORY OP CARTHAGE. 

Gauls were naked from the hips upwards. They used 
very long swords, without a point. Both had oblong 
shields, and both seemed to the Romans and Italians, 
whose stature seldom exceeded the average height of 
men, to be almost giants in size. Still further to the 
right, but thrown back somewhat so as to be on a 
level with their countrymen on the left wing, stood 
the other half of the African infantry. And then on 
the extreme right wing of the whole army, were the 
African light horsemen under the command of Mago. 
These, to use the military phrase, " rested upon 
nothing ; " that is, they had nothing to support their 
right flank. There were but two thousand of them, 
for they had had some of the hardest of the fighting 
since the army had entered Italy ; but they were con- 
fident of victory. The whole army numbered fifty 
thousand, but ten thousand had been detached to 
guard the camp. The right wing of the enemy con- 
sisted of the Roman horse, who thus fronted the 
heavy cavalry of Carthage ; next to these came the 
infantry of the legions, more than seventy thousand 
strong, yet drawn up in so dense an array — in column, 
in fact, rather than in line — that they did not overlap 
the far smaller force of their adversaries. On the left 
wing were posted the cavalry of the allies. It was 
here that Varro commanded. Paullus was on the 
right of the army. The whole force numbered about 
eighty thousand, allowing for the detachment which 
had been told off to guard the camp. Their faces 
were turned to the south. This was a great disad- 
vantage to them, not so much on account of the glare 
of the sun, for it was yet early in the day, but because 



THE STRUGGLE. 221 

the hot wind, which the country people called Vul- 
turnus, rolled such clouds of dust in their faces that 
they could scarcely see what lay before them. 

The battle began as usual with the skirmishers. 
Here the Carthaginians had the advantage. The 
slingers from the Balearic islands ^ were more expert 
and effective than any of the Roman light-armed 
troops. The showers of stones which they sent 
among the legions did much damage, wounding 
severely, among others, the Consul Paullus. Then 
the heavy-armed cavalry of Carthage charged the 
Roman horse that was ranged over against them. 
The Romans were some of the bravest and best born 
of their nation ; but they were inferior in numbers, in 
the weight of men and horses, and in their equip- 
ment. They wore no cuirasses ; their shields were 
weak ; their spears were easily broken. Probably 
they had no special skill in cavalry tactics ; had they 
possessed it, there was no opportunity of showing it, 
for there was no room to manoeuvre. It was a fierce 
hand-to-hand fight ; many of the Spaniards and 
Gauls leapt to the ground, and dragged their opponents 
from their horses. 

In the centre of the field where the Roman legions 
met the Gallic and Spanish infantry, Hannibal seemed 
for a time to be less successful. He had advanced 
these troops considerably beyond the rest of his line. 
When charged by the heavy columns of the enemy 
they were forced to fall back. The Romans pressed 

' Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica. The reader must not be tempted by 
the plausible derivation from the Greek ftdWoj (ballo), to throw or 
strike. The name seems to have been derived from some form of Baal. 



222 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

on in a dense and unmanageable mass. And in what 
seemed the moment of victory they found themselves 
assailed on both flanks and in the rear. On either 
side the two bodies of African infantry, who had 
hitherto taken no part in the battle, fell upon them. 
Almost at the same time came Hasdrubal with his 
heavy horsemen. After routing the Roman cavalry 
of the right wing, he had charged that of the allies 
upon the left. These had been already thrown into 
confusion by the stealthy attack of five hundred 
Africans, who had pretended to surrender, but came 
' up in the critical moment and hamstrung their horses. 
Hasdrubal completed their rout, and leaving the 
Africans to pursue the fugitives, charged the rear of 
the Roman infantry. These were now surrounded 
on all sides, for the Gauls and Spaniards in their 
front had rallied, and checked their advance. Upon 
this helpless mass the Carthaginians used their swords 
till they were fairly weary of slaying. How many 
men lay dead upon the field when darkness came on 
it is impossible to say. Polybius gives the number 
at seventy thousand, and he is probably a better 
authority than Livy, who reduces it to fifty thousand. 
Among them were one of the consuls, the ex-consul 
Servilius, twenty-one military tribunes (officers of a 
rank about equal to that of a colonel), and eighty 
members of the Senate. Varro had fled from, the 
field with seventy horsemen. Hannibal's loss was 
something under six thousand. 

The question was, "What was he to do.?" He 
had destroyed the enemy's army, for even the force 
left to guard the camps had surrendered, and there 



WILL HE MARCH ON ROME ? 223 

was no other army in the field. Most of his officers, 
while they crowded round to congratulate him, 
advised him to give himself and his army some rest. 
Maharbal, who was in chief command of the cavalry, 
thought otherwise. " Do you know," he said, " what 
you have done by this day's victory? I will tell you. 
Four days hence you shall be supping in the Capitol 
of Rome. Let me go on in front with my cavalry. 
They must know that I have come before they know 
that I am coming." Hannibal was not so sanguine. 
He praised Maharbal's zeal, but must take time to 
consider so grave a matter. Then Maharbal broke 
out : " I see that the gods do not give all their gifts to 
one man. Hannibal, you have the secret of victory, 
but not the secret of using it." 

It will never be decided whether Hannibal, with 
his cautious policy, or the bold Maharbal was in the 
right. But one is disposed to believe that so skilful 
a general, one, too, who was not wanting in boldness 
(for what could be bolder than this whole march into 
Italy?), knew what could and what could not be done 
better than anybody else. He could not hope to 
succeed unless the allies of Rome deserted her, and 
he had to wait and see whether this would happen. 
Till he was sure of it he could not, we may well 
believe, afford to risk an advance. One defeat would 
have been fatal to him. It would have been almost 
as fatal to sit down in vain before the walls of Rome. 
But, however this may be, it is certain that the op- 
portunity, if it was an opportunity, never came back 
to him. He did indeed come near to Rome, as I 
shall have to tell hereafter, but this was a feint rather 



224 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



than a serious attack. That midsummer day in the 
year 216 saw the highest point which the fortunes of 
Carthage ever reached. Then only, if even then, she 
might have been the mistress of the world. 




XI. 



AFTER CANN^. 



The victory of Cannae had great results, though it 
did not make Hannibal feel strong enough to strike 
a blow at Rome. First and foremost among these 
results was the alliance of Capua, the second city in 
Italy. The Capuans, indeed, were not all of one mind 
in the matter. It was the people that favoured 
Carthage ; the nobles were for the most part inclined 
to Rome. It was a noble, however, and one who was 
married to a lady of the great Roman house of 
Claudms, that took the lead in this movement. The 
people rose against the Senate, stripped it of its 
power, massacred a number of Roman citizens who 
were sojourning in the town, and sent envoys to 
invite Hannibal to their city. He was of course 
delighted to come ; Capua, which had more than 
thirty thousand soldiers of her own, was almost as 
great a gain as the victory at Cannae. He was near 
to being assassinated, indeed, on the night of his 
entering the city, for the son of his entertainer had 
resolved to stab him at the dinner-table. The next 
day he was present at a meeting of the Senate. He 
was full of promises ; he undertook that Capua should 
thereafter be the capital of Italy. Meanwhile he 



226 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

demanded that a leading citizen who had been 
specially active on the Roman side should be given 
up to him. The man was arrested, and was sent by 
Hannibal to Carthage. 

The greater part of Central and Southern Italy 
followed the example of Capua. All the Samnites, 
with the exception of a single tribe, revolted from 
Rome ; so did Lucania and Bruttii, and so did many 
of the Greek cities in the south, the chief among them 
being Crotona. These cities had passed the height 
of their prosperity, but they were still populous and 
powerful towns. 

It was only the extraordinary tenacity and courage 
of Rome that enabled her to hold out. The Senate 
never lost its courage, and, after the first panic was 
over, the people we're ready to stand by their rulers to 
the last. When Varro, whose rashness and folly had 
almost ruined his country, returned to Rome, the 
Senate went out to meet him, and publicly thanked 
him that he "had not despaired of the commonwealth." 
As he was of the opposite party in politics, this was a 
way of saying that all Romans, whatever their way 
of thinking, must join together to made the best of 
everything. Nothing that could be done to raise an 
army was neglected. Bands of brigands were induced 
to enlist by promises of pardon for past offences ; 
even slaves were recruited. As many as eight thou- 
sand soldiers were gained in this way. But when a 
proposal came from Hannibal that the prisoners of 
Cannae should be ransomed, the horsemen at £17, 
the infantry at ;i^io each, the offer was refused. By 
great exertions an army ^^•as raised, and put under 



MAGO AT CARTHAGE. 22/ 

the command of Marcellus, who was probably the 
best soldier that Rome possessed at the time. 

Hannibal had sent his brother Mago to Carthage 
from the battle-field of Cannae. Introduced into the 
Senate, he gave a glowing account of what had been 
done, of the four victories which had been gained, of 
the two hundred thousand men that had been slain, 
the fifty thousand that had been taken prisoners. As 
a practical proof of the truth of his story, he poured 
out on the floor of the Senate-house a peck of gold 
rings which had been taken, he said, from Roman 
soldiers that had been slain in battle. It was only 
the horsemen, indeed only the upper class of the 
horsemen, he explained, that were accustomed to 
wear them. But the practical conclusion of his speech 
was a demand for help. " The nearer the prospect," 
he said, " of finishing the war, the more you are bound 
to support your general. He is fighting far away 
from home. Pay is wanted for troops ; provisions 
are hard to obtain. And though he has won great 
victories, he has not won them without some loss. 
He asks, therefore, for help in men, money, and stores." 

The war-party was delighted. One of them turned 
to Hanno, leader of the opposite faction, and asked 
him, "Does Hanno still repent of having made war 
on Rome ? " " Yes," replied Hanno, " I still repent, 
and shall do so till I see peace made again. Your 
invincible general makes as great demands upon you 
as if he had been beaten. And as for his prospects 
for the future, has any Latin city joined him ? Has 
a single man of the thirty-five tribes of Rome deserted 
to him .? ' 



228 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

To these questions Mago could only ansAver " No ! " 
Hanno asked again, " Has Rome said a word about 
peace?" Mago could only answer that it had not. 
Then said Hanno, " We are as far off from the end of 
the war as we were when Hannibal crossed into Italy. 
I vote that no help should be sent to prolong a war 
which can have no good end." 

This protest, of course, was useless. The Senate 
resolved to send four thousand Africali troops, forty 
elephants, and a sum of money. And Mago was to 
go into Spain and raise 20,000 troops to fill up the 
gaps in the armies there and in Italy. As a matter 
of fact little was done ; at this crisis the Carthaginian 
government showed but little energy, and Hannibal 
was left, for the most part, to help himself. 

The winter of 216-5 he and his army spent in 
Capua. Ever since he had started from New Carthage, 
more than two years before, his men had lived in 
tents, satisfied with the hard discipline and scanty fare 
of the camp. Doubtless, they had lost something of 
their vigour by the time that they took the field 
again ; but there were other and weightier reasons 
why Hannibal's great plans should end in failure than 
that his army was spoilt by the luxury of a winter in 
Capua. 

In the next year little was done. Hannibal gained 
some small successes, and met with some small losses. 
His chief venture had been the siege of Nola, which, 
after Capua, was the chief city of Campania. In this he 
failed, owing chiefly to the skill and energy of Mar- 
cellus. To have let a year pass without making a 
decided advance was in fact to fall back. Still his 



HANNIBAL'S PROSPECTS. 22g 

prospects in some directions had improved. At 
Syracuse the wise old King Hiero, who had continued 
to be loyal to Rome, without making an enemy of 
Carthage, was dead. Hieronymus, his grandson and 
successor, was a foolish youth, who thought he could 
do better for himself by joining what seemed to be 
the winning side. He offered his help to Carthage, 
asking as the price the supremacy over the whole of 
Sicily. Philip, King of Macedon, again, seemed ready 
to join an alliance against Rome. Little advantage, 
however, was gained in this way. Of what happened 
to Hieronymus I shall soon have to speak. Philip's 
action was delayed, first by the accident of his envoys 
falling into the hands of the Romans as they were on 
their way back from Hannibal's camp, and afterwards 
by causes which we have no means of explaining. 
Anyhow, at the time when his help would have been 
most valuable to Hannibal and most damaging to 
Rome, he did nothing. 

On the other hand, Carthage suffered a great loss in 
the complete conquest by their enemies of the island 
of Sardinia, which had again fallen into their hands. 
On the whole, at the end of 215 Hannibal, though he 
had received no serious check in the field, was in a 
much worse position than he had been in at the 
beginning. 

The next year also (214) had much the same result. 
Hannibal made an attempt to seize Tarentum, but 
failed. There were in this town, as elsewhere, a 
Carthaginian and a Roman party. The latter got to 
know what their opponents were planning, and took 
such precautions, that when Hannibal appeared before 



230 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the walls of the city he found it prepared for defence ; 
and after vainly lingering in the neighbourhood for a 
few days, was obliged to depart. In another part of 
Southern Italy he suffered a serious loss. Hanno, one 
of his lieutenants, had raised a force of twenty thousand 
Lucanians. This was defeated at Beneventum by the 
Roman general Gracchus, who was in command of an 
army of slaves. Hanno's Lucanian infantry either 
perished on the field of battle, or dispersed to their 
own homes ; but he escaped himself with about a 
thousand African cavalry. 

The next great event of the war — its exact date 
is uncertain — was a great gain to Hannibal. The 
friends of Carthage in Tarentum, though overpowered 
for the moment, had n-ever given up their plans ; and 
now they found an opportunity for carrying them out. 
The city had sent hostages to Rome. These had 
attempted to escape, had been captured, and executed. 
This act of cruelty roused their fellow-citizens to fury ; 
communications were at once opened with Hannibal, 
and the ringleaders of the plot were not, as might have 
been supposed, popular leaders, but nobles — relatives, 
it is probable, of the unfortunate hostages. Hannibal 
marched towards the town with a picked force of ten 
thousand men, and halted a few miles off, while his 
friends within the city completed their preparations. 
One party was told off to deal with the governor. 
a Roman of the house of Livius. He had been 
giving a banquet to some of the citizens ; the con- 
spirators, paid him a visit after it was over, laughed 
and joked with him, and finally left him in such a 
state that they had nothing to fear from his watchful- 



TARENTUM GAINED. 23I 

ness. Another party had arranged to admit Hannibal 
himseU" by a gate which opened out of the quarter of 
the tombs, which in Tarentum — we might almost say 
alone among Greek cities — were within the walls. A 
fire signal was given by Hannibal and answered by 
the conspirators. The latter fell upon the guards of 
the gate, and Hannibal was at hand outside to 
support them. A third party was busy at another of 
the gates. They had been accustomed for several days 
to go out on what seemed to be hunting parties, to 
return late at night, to talk over their sport with the 
guard, and to give them some of the game. On this 
occasion they brought back with them a particularly 
fine wild boar. While the animal was actually in the 
passage of the gate, and the sentry was busy admiring 
it, thirty African soldiers, who had been stealthily 
approaching, rushed up, cut the man down, and, 
securing the gate, let in a large body of their com- 
rades. The city of Tarentum was taken, but the 
citadel was hastily secured by the Roman garrison. 
The Tarentines were not harmed. It was sufficient if 
any citizen wrote over his door, " This is a Tarentine's 
house." But all the dwellings in which Romans had 
been quartered were given up to plunder. 



o>. 




XII. 



THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 



From Trebia to Cannae the tide of success rose 
with Hannibal. For three years or thereabouts after 
Cannse it may be said to have remained at its height. 
His gains and losses about balanced each other. 
This, of course, really meant that his chances of 
victory were growing less, for his was an enterprise to 
which delay, even without defeat, was fatal. 

In 212 the tide manifestly turned. The Romans 
felt themselves strong enough to besiege Capua. 
The city was already in distress for want of food ; for 
with the Roman armies so near the rich Campanian 
plains could not be cultivated. And Hannibal's first 
attempt to provision it failed. A second succeeded ; but 
shortly after the place was regularly invested. Three 
Roman armies sat down before it, and then drew a 
complete line round it with a strong rampart and 
ditch, and with forts at intervals. The townspeople 
were not strong enough to make sallies with effect, 
and all that they could do was to send messenger 
after messenger to Hannibal, begging earnestly for 
help, if he did not wish to see them perish. Early in 
the year 21 1 — that is, after the siege had lasted some 
months — he made a determined effort to relieve the 



ATTEMPTED RELIEF OF CAPUA. 233 

city. He marched rapidly with a picked force from 
Tarentum, where the citadel was still holding out 
against him, and took up a position on Mount Tifata, 
a hill which overlooked the city. He had contrived 
to warn the Capuans of his coming, arranging that 
they should make a sortie from their walls while he 
was attacking one of the camps of the besiegers. The 
sortie was easily repulsed ; Hannibal's attack seemed 
at one time likely to succeed, but ended in failure. 
His elephants — he had thirty-three of these animals 
with him — forced their way into the Roman camp, 
and made great havoc with the tents, while they 
caused a stampede among the horses. In the midst 
of the confusion voices were heard bidding the 
Romans make the best of their way to the hills. The 
camp, they said, was lost, and each man must save 
himself The speakers used the Latin tongiie, and 
spoke in the name of the consuls ; but they were 
really Hannibal's men. This was one of the tricks 
with v/hich this great general was always so read)''. 
Ingenious as it was, it does not seem to have had 
much effect. 

Then he tried his last resource. He would march 
on Rome itself With forces so large engaged in this 
siege, the city could have but few to defend it. It 
was possible that by a sudden movement he might 
get within the walls ; in any case it was likely that a 
part of the investing force would be withdrawn for 
the protection of the capital. The Capuans were 
informed of what he was intending to do, and en- 
couraged to hold out. He made his way through the 
rich wine- producing region of Northern Campania, 



234 ^-^-^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

ravaging the country as he went. At Fregell?e he 
found the bridge over the Liris broken down, and 
lost some time in consequence. Crossing into Latium, 
he passed through the town of Anagnia to Mount 
Algidus. After a vain attempt to seize Tusculum, he 
continued his march northwards, and pitched his 
camp at a distance of eight miles from Rome. 
Fulvius, the proconsul, had made his way meanwhile 
from Capua with a force of fifteen thousand men. 
Marching through a friendly country, and finding all 
that he wanted supplied by the towns through which 
he passed, he had been able to outstrip the Cartha- 
ginian army. Nevertheless the terror in the city was 
great. The women crowded to the temples, and, with 
their long hair unbound, threw themselves before the 
images of the gods and implored their protection. 
The next day Hannibal advanced still nearer to the 
walls. He pitched his camp on the bank of the Anio, 
at the third milestone from Rome ; and then, taking 
with him a force of two thousand cavalry, rode up 
and reconnoitred the southern wall of the city. On 
the morrow he crossed the Anio with his whole army, 
and offered battle. But no engagement was fought. 
Livy tells us a story of how, that day and the next, so 
fierce a storm of rain came on that neither army 
could keep the field, the weather clearing immediately 
when they returned to camp ; and how Hannibal 
exclaimed, " Once I wanted the will to take this city, 
and now I want the fortune." We are told that he 
was greatly discouraged by two proofs of the indif- 
ference with which the Romans regarded his presence. 
Soldiers, he heard, were being actually sent away 



CAPUA LOST TO HANNIBAL. 235 

from the city to reinforce the armies in Spain ; and 
the very land on which he had pitched his camp had 
easily found a purchaser. By way of retort to this 
last affront — for so he is said to have regarded it — he 
ordered the bankers' shops round the Roman market- 
place to be put up to auction. But he found that his 
move had failed, and marched back to Campania, and 
from thence to the extreme south of Italy. 

Capua, thus left to itself, could do nothing but sur- 
render. Of its punishment by Rome it is needless to 
speak in detail. The nobles were executed ; the rest 
of the population sold into slavery. In a play that 
was acted at Rome some twenty years afterwards we 
find a brutal jest on their cruel fate. " There," says 
one of the characters, speaking of some unhealthy 
spot, " even a Syrian — and the Syrians are the toughest 
of slaves— cannot live six months." "Nay," says the 
other, " the Campanians have learnt by this time to 
bear more than the Syrians." 

The next year (210) passed with little incident, as 
far as Italy was concerned (I shall speak of Sicily and 
Spain hereafter). The Romans had never been able 
to vanquish Hannibal in the open field ; they scarcely 
even ventured to meet him. He had shown that he 
could march from one end of Italy to the other with- 
out hindrance, and that he could send his plundering 
parties up to the very walls of Rome ; but he had not 
been able to save the great city which had come over to 
him ; and there was small temptation to any other to 
join him. Not only was Capua a great actual loss to 
him, but the fact that it had fallen in spite of all his 
efforts to relieve it was a terrible blow to his reputa- 



236 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

tion. For all his skill as a general — and that showed 
itself more and more as the war went on — he was 
clearly wanting in power. 

In Sicily, the course of events went against the 
cause of Carthage. Hieronymus, the foolish youth 
who had succeeded the wise old Hiero at Syracuse, 
had been murdered after a reign of thirteen months 
by an assassin who professed to be acting in the 
interests of Rome. A series of dreadful acts of 
cruelty followed. Here also, as elsewhere, the popular 
party favoured Carthage, while the aristocrats were 
inclined to Rome, and there was a fierce struggle 
between them. In the end the former triumphed, 
and Syracuse became the ally of Carthage. As such 
it was besieged by the forces of Rome, Appius 
Claudius commanding the army and Marcellus the 
fleet. The narrative of the siege does not fall within 
the scope of this book. The story of how the defence 
was prolonged by the engineering skill of Archimedes 
is full of interest, but it may be found elsewhere. 
The efforts which Carthage made to save her new 
ally were fruitless. A large army, indeed, was col- 
lected under Himilco, and this was reinforced from 
various Sicilian cities, which had been enraged by the 
savage cruelty which the Romans had shown in their 
treatment of such places as fell into their hands. But 
the Roman lines could not be broken ; and when 
Himilco encamped outside them, intending, it is 
probable, to blockade them as they were blockading 
the city, a pestilence broke out among his troops. So 
fearful were its ravages that the army was literally 
destroyed. The fleet under Bomilcar did no more. 



CARTHAGE LOSES SICILY. 237 

It did not even make an attempt at relieving the' 
city. Though it numbered as many as a hundred 
and thirty vessels of war, it declined an engagement 
with the Romans, and instead of attempting to enter 
the harbour of Syracuse, sailed away to Tarentum. 
In 212 Syracuse was taken by Marcellus. 

Hannibal, however, was not willing to give up the 
island as lost. He sent one Mutines, a Liby- Phoeni- 
cian, or half-caste Carthaginian, to take command of 
the forces ; and Mutines, fixing his headquarters at 
Agrigentum, carried on for many months a guerilla 
warfare. Unfortunately his appointment had caused 
great annoyance to the pure-blood Carthaginian 
officers in the island, especially to Hanno, who was the 
commander-in-chief, Hanno at last suspended him, 
and handed over the command to his own son. The 
loyalty of Mutines did not stand firm under such pro- 
vocation, and the Numidians who comprised his force 
were furious at his disgrace. Communications were 
at once opened with Lsevinus, the Roman general. 
A force was sent to Agrigentum ; the Numidians cut 
down the guards of one of the city gates, threw it 
open, and admitted the Roman soldiers. Hanno, who 
had come to the place probably to make arrangements 
for the change of commanders, saw that something 
had taken place, and, supposing that it was nothing 
more than some riotous proceedings of the Numidians, 
went down to restore order. He discovered the truth 
just in time to save himself by flight. Laevinus exe- 
cuted the principal citizens of Agrigentum, and sold 
the rest of the population as slaves. Of the sixty- 
six Sicilian towns that had taken the side of Carthage, 



238 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

six were taken by force of arms and twenty were be- 
trayed ; the remainder capitulated. Before the end 
of 210 Sicily was finally lost. 

In Spain affairs had not reached the same point, but 
they were tending the same way. Hannibal had left, 
we have seen, his brother Hasdrubal in command, and 
the war was carried on for several years with varying 
success between him and the two brothers, Cnaius and 
Publius Scipio. Cnaeus Scipio had been left in Spain 
in temporary command when Publius left the country 
to- face Hannibal in Italy, and he gained some con- 
siderable successes, if Livy's account is to be trusted. 
We cannot help noticing, however, that the Roman 
generals are again and again credited with great 
victories which mostly are found to lead to nothing. 
Unfortunately we have no other accounts to fall back 
upon, and we can only tell the story as it is told to 
us, and believe whatever seems credible. 

In 218 Cnaeus Scipio fought a battle with Hanno, 
who had been left in command of the country between 
the Ebro and the Pyrenees,^ vanquished and took 
him prisoner, and almost annihilated his army. The 
soldiers found a great prize in his camp, for Hannibal 
had left with him the heavy baggage which he could 
not carry across the Alps. Hasdrubal moved to help 
his colleague, but finding himself too late, re-crossed 
the Ebro. The next year, after wintering at Tarraco, 
Cnaeus defeated the Carthaginian fleet off the mouth 
of the Ebro. Shortly afterwards he was joined by 
his brother Publius ; and the two generals continued 
to act together for several years. Their first step was 
to march to Saguntum. The hostages given to the 



ROMAN SUCCESSES IN SPATN. 239 

Carthaginian government by the Spanish tribes were 
kept in the citadel of this town ; the Scipios contrived 
to get possession of them by the treachery of the officer 
who had the charge of them. They sent them back to 
their friends, and of course gained great popularity 
throughout Spain by the act. In the following year 
(216) they are said to have defeated Hasdrubal on 
the banks of the Ebro so completely that he fled 
from the field of battle with but a few followers. In 
215 they relieved Illiturgis, which Hasdrubal and two 
other Carthaginian generals were besieging. The 
Romans, we read, had but sixteen thousand men 
under arms, the Carthaginians sixty thousand ; but 
the result of the battle was a complete victory. The 
Romans killed more than their own number, captured 
three thousand men, nearly a thousand horses (Livy is 
careful not to overstate the number), sixty standards, 
and seven elephants. Moving on to Intibilis the 
Scipios fought another battle, killed thirteen thousand 
of the enemy, captured two thousand, two and forty 
standards, and nine elephants. The result of these 
brilliant victories was that nearly all Spain came over 
to the Roman side. So we read, but find that for all 
this it was necessary to win two more great victories 
in the following year (214). 

We may be sure, however, that during these years 
and the two following years (^213, 212) the balance of 
success inclined to the Roman side. And this supe- 
riority became more evident when Hasdrubal Barca 
had to be recalled to Africa, where the Numidian 
king Syphax had declared war against Carthage. 
The Scipios had sent envoys to him, promising him 



240 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

immediate help and future reward if he would perse- 
vere in his hostility. One of the envoys remained 
behind to assist in drilling his new levies. The Car- 
thaginians found an ally in King Gala, Syphax's 
neighbour and rival. King Gala had a son, Masinissa. 
a youth of but seventeen years, but of extraordinary 
capacity. Young as he was, he was put in command 
of his father's army and of the Carthaginian troops 
which served with it, and defeated Syphax so com- 
pletely that the war was ended by a single battle. 
We shall hear of Masinissa again. 

Hasdrudal was now able to return to Spain. He 
took with him large reinforcements, two lieutenants, 
another Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, and Mago, the 
youngest brother of Hannibal, and Masinissa. After 
this the fortune of war changed. The Scipios had 
made a great effort to complete the conquest of Spain, 
raising a native force of twenty thousand to act 
together with their own troops. In view of the fact that 
three Carthaginian armies were now in the field, they 
determined to divide their own forces. Publius with 
two-thirds of the army was to act against Mago and 
Hasdrubal Gisco, Cnaeus against Hasdrubal Barca. 
Publius, hearing that his opponents were likely to 
have their strength largely increased by native allies, 
resolved to attack them at once. He was himself 
attacked on his march by the African light horsemen 
under Masinissa, and when he faced about to receive 
their charge, found the Carthaginians assailing his 
rear. He was himself killed early in the day, and 
after his death his troops soon took to flight. Few, 
however, could escape when the pursuers were the 



DEATH OF THE SCIPIOS. 24I 

light African horsemen, and an infantry that was 
almost as fleet of foot. The camp, however, with its 
garrison was still safe. 

Cnaeus did not long survive his brother. His native 
allies had been bribed to leave him ; and he now 
found himself in the presence of the united forces of 
the three Carthaginian generals. He drew his forces 
together on some rising ground that was near. The 
place was incapable of being defended. The ascent was 
was easy. There was no timber for a rampart ; no earth 
with which the soldiers could make an entrenchment. 
All that could be done was to make a poor defence out 
of the pack-saddles of the horses and mules and the 
baggage. This was almost immediately broken down. 
Many of the soldiers made their escape to the camp 
of the other army ; but the general perished. He had 
survived his brother only twenty-nine days. Lucius 
Marcius, the officer left in command of the camp, 
contrived to keep together what was left of the Roman 
forces, and even to inflict some losses on the enemy. 
His command was taken over by Claudius Nero, who 
was sent from Rome for that purpose, but who seems 
to have effected but little good. Livy tells a strange 
story of how Hasdrubal was surrounded ; how he 
promised to evacuate Spain ; how he amused the 
Roman general by conferences about the terms of 
agreement, and in the meanwhile contrived to get 
his army out of their dangerous situation, so that 
Nero, when the negotiations were broken off, found 
nothing but an empty camp. The death of the two 
Scipios seems to have happened in the year 211. 

The next year the son of Publius, whom we have 



2 42 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

seen saving his father's life at the battle of the Ticinus, 
came into Spain as commander-in-chief. It was an 
office which no one had desired to hold, for when the 
election was held at Rome not a single candidate 
presented himself. At last the young Scipio came 
forward. He was not twenty-four years old, and 
therefore below the legal age for even the lowest 
office ; but the people received him with applause. 
His high reputation, the beauty of his person, and 
his charm of manner, spoke for him. When he pro- 
mised that he would conquer not only Spain, but 
Carthage itself, what would have seemed in any other 
man but a foolish boast was received with delight, 
and he was unanimously chosen. 

He began his campaign by a great achievement — 
the capture of New Carthage, the capital of the Car- 
thaginian province. A night march brought him up to 
the walls of the city before any one knew that he had 
even arrived in Spain. With the keen eye of a great 
general he spied the weak spot in the defences, a 
place where the sea came up to the wall. Taking 
advantage of an unusually low tide — for he seems to 
have had the curious good fortune which goes to make 
a great general — he led his men through the water, 
which was barely up to their knees, and found his way 
into the city. Mago, who was in command, retreated 
into the citadel ; but, finding it impossible to hold 
out, surrendered himself and his garrison in the course 
of a few hours. Within four days after coming into 
this province, Scipio had thus justified his appointment 
by capturing the Carthaginian capital. It will be 
convenient if we take this opportunity of finishing 



CAPTURE OF NEW CARTHAGE. 243 

the story of the Carthaginian rale in Spain, though it 
will carry us beyond the time up to which we have 
followed the course of events e'sewhere. 

During the remainder of the year which he had 
begun by the capture of New Carthage Scipio re- 
mained quiet, but was busy in preparing for future 
action. He made friends of the Spanish chiefs. This 
was a business which he could do better than an}- 
other man, for no one could withstand the singular 
charm of his manner. When he took the field in the 
following year (209; the natives joined him in large 
numbers. In the course of this campaign he fought 
a great battle with Hasdrubal Barca. He is said to 
have defeated him, but as he did not hinder him from 
carrying out his great plan (of which I shall have to 
speak hereafter) of marching into Italy to the help ot 
Hannibal, the defeat was evidently not serious. The 
next year passed with few incidents, but in 207 a 
decisive defeat of the Carthaginian armies at Silpia 
made Scipio master of nearly the whole of Spain. 
Only Gades was left to Carthage. Scipio had not 
forgotten his promise that he would conquer not 
only Spain but Carthage also. One part of it was 
now nearly fulfilled, and he now saw a chance of 
fulfilling the other. He crossed over with only a 
couple of war-ships to Africa, and presented himself 
at the court of King Syphax. His object was to 
persuade the king to desert Carthage, and enter into 
alliance with Rome. Curiously enough Hasdrubal 
Gisco had come on a similar errand. The two 
opponents spent several days together, and conversed, 
we are told, in a most kindly fashion. The king 



244 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



seems to have made promises to both. He was 
greatly charmed with Scipio, and even promised to 
make the aUiance which he desired. But he was still 
more charmed with Sophonisba, the lovely daughter 
of Hasdrubal. She became his wife, and under her 
influence he remained faithful to Carthage. 

Things had not gone well in Spain during Scipio's 
absence. Mago, who was still at Gades, induced 
some of the Spanish tribes to revolt against Rome. 
These had to be again subdued. When this was 
done, Scipio himself fell ill. During his illness a part 
of the Roman army broke out into open mutiny. 
Their pay was in arrear, and Scipio's strict discipline 
forbad them to make it up by plundering the natives 
of the country. But when the general was sufficiently 
recovered to be able to deal with them in person, he 
contrived to bring them back to their duty. The 
Carthaginian cause in Spain was now lost. Mago, 
the brother of Hannibal, transported what forces 
remained to him into Liguria, and Gades surrendered 
to the Romans. This was in the year 205. 



XIII. 

THE LAST CHANCE OF VICTORY. 

In Italy Hannibal still remained unvanquished in 
the field, though his hopes were gradually growing 
less. Early in the year 210 he won at Herdonia 
in Western Apulia a victory which may almost be 
reckoned with those that had made his early cam- 
paigns so famous. Cnaeus Fulvius, who had been 
Consul the year before, had made a sudden march on 
the town. It was one of those that had revolted 
after the defeat at Cannae, and he understood it to 
be badly guarded. He was the bolder because he be- 
lieved Hannibal to be in the extreme south of Italy. 
But Hannibal had heard everything from his spies, 
and was there to meet him. Fulvius, as might be 
expected, was out-generalled. His army was unskil- 
fully posted, and could not resist the attacks which 
were directed against it from several points at once. 
The end was a complete rout. Even the Roman 
camp was taken. Fulvius himself fell in the battle, 
and the Roman loss was estimated by some at eleven, 
by others at seven thousand. It was evidently a 
great disaster. Nothing like an army was left ; only 
some scattered fugitives made their way to Marcellus 
in Samnium. It was from Marcellus, not from any 



246 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

officer who had been present at Herdonia^ that the 
Senate received a despatch describing what had 
happened. 

During the rest of the campaign but Httle hap- 
pened, though Marcellus is said to have fought a 
drawn battle with HannibaJ, which was claimed as 
a victory when the next day he found that the 
enemy had decamped. The following year (209) was 
one of disaster to Hannibal, for he lost the second of 
the great gains which he had secured in Italy, the city 
of Tarentum. It was betrayed to the Romans by the 
commander of the Bruttian garrison which Hannibal 
had placed in it. The veteran soldier Fabius, now in 
his eightieth year and consul for the fifth time, had 
the great delight of finishing his many campaigns by 
this piece of good fortune. A happy jest which the 
old man is said to have uttered on the occasion has 
been recorded. Livius, when his carelessness had 
lost the city, had taken refuge in the citadel. The 
citadel had never passed out of the hands of the 
Romans, and this fact of course made the recovery of 
the town somewhat more easy. Livius was disposed 
to get some credit for himself out of this circum- 
stance. " You may thank me," he said, " Quintus 
Fabius, for having been able to recover Tarentum." 
" Quite so," replied Fabius, " for if you had not lost it, 
I never should have recovered it." Hannibal had heard 
of the advance of the Romans, and had hastened by 
forced marches to save the city. He was too late. 
He pitched his camp clcse by, and after a few days 
returned to his headquarters at Metapontum. He 
made an attempt to entrap Fabius, who might, he 



THE DEATH OF MARCELLUS. 247 

thought, be tempted, after his success at Tarentum, 
into making a similar attempt on Metapontum. A 
forged letter, purporting to come from some of the 
principal citizens, was conveyed to him, offering to 
betray the place into his hands. The old Roman is 
said to have been deceived, but to have been deterred 
from making the attempt by some unfavourable signs 
in the sacrifices. Notwithstanding this loss, Hannibal 
seems to have held his own during the rest of the 
campaign. Livy tells us, indeed, that Marcellus fought 
three battles with him, and that after being beaten in 
the first, he drew the second, and won the third. 
But as it was made a complaint against him after- 
wards that he had kept his troops for the greater part 
of the year within the walls of Venusia, and had 
allowed the enemy to plunder the country at his 
pleasure, we may well doubt whether any victory 
was won. Rome was now showing great signs of 
exhaustion, for twelve out of the thirty Latin 
cities refused to furnish any further supplies ; and 
the Etrurians were beginning to waver in their 
fidelity. 

The next year (208) is chiefly marked by the death 
of Marcellus. Chosen consul for the sixth time, he 
marched with his colleague Crispinus to act against 
Hannibal. He was never content, we are told, except 
when he was engaged with the great Carthaginian 
leader himself. The two consuls had ridden out of 
the camp with an escort of two hundred cavalry, some 
of them Etrurians, who had been compelled to serve 
to ensure the fidelity of their cities. Some African 
horsemen under cover of a wood which was between 



248 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

the two camps, crept unobserved to the rear of the 
Roman party, and then charged them from behind. 
The Etrurians fled ; the rest of the escort, who were 
Latins, were overpowered. Marcellus was killed on 
the spot ; Crispinus was wounded so seriously that he 
died not long afterwards. Hannibal gave honourable 
burial to the body of his brave opponent. 

And now came one of the critical years of the 
war. Hasdrubal, of whose departure from Spain I 
have spoken before, was now in Italy. He had found 
little difficulty in crossing the Alps ; the native tribes 
had learnt that no harm was intended to them, 
and probably received some consideration for their 
neutrality. And some of the engineering works 
which Hannibal had constructed were doubtless still 
in existence. Anyhow, Hasdrubal made his appear- 
ance in Italy before the Romans, and even, it would 
seem, before his brother expected him. Rome made 
a great effort to meet this new danger. She had lost 
some of her best generals. Marcellus \\ as dead, and 
Fabius was too old for active service. Livius, an old 
soldier who had distinguished himself twelve years 
before, but had since been living in retirement, and 
Claudius Nero were chosen consuls, and fifteen 
legions were raised to form their armies. Livius 
was sent to act against Hasdrulal; Nero watched 
the army of Hannibal. 

And now we come to one of the boldest and most 
skilful achievements in the history of Roman war. 
A despatch from Hasdrubal to his brother, announc- 
ing his intention of joining him, fell into the hands of 
some Roman scouts and was broug-ht to Nero. It 



NERO S GREAT MARCH. 249 

was written in the Carthaginian language, but there 
were, of course, prisoners in the camp who could read 
it to the consul. He conceived at once a bold design. 
He would take his best troops, join his colleague 
by forced marches, and crush Hasdrubal before he 
could effect the junction with his brother. The force 
which he selected numbered seven thousand men. 
Even they were not at first let into the secret. 
They were to surprise a garrison at Lucania, he told 
them.. It was only when they were well on their 
way that he discovered his real design. He reached 
the camp of Livius in safety, and it was agreed be- 
tween the two consuls that battle should be given 
at once. 

But the keen eyes of Hasdrubal had discovered 
what had happened. The Romans seemed more 
numerous than before ; his scouts noticed that of the 
watering-parties which went down to the river some 
were more sunburnt than the rest. Finally it was 
observed that the clarion was sounded twice in the 
camp, showing that both consuls were present. He 
resolved to avoid, if he could, an engagement, and 
left his camp during the night. But when he 
attempted to march southward his difficulties began. 
His native guide escaped, and he could not find the 
ford over the river Metaurus, which lay in his route. 
He thus lost the start which he had gained by his 
stealthy departure, and the Romans came up with 
him. He had begun to fortify a camp, but seeing 
the enemy advance prepared to give battle. He put 
his elephants in front. The Gauls, recent levies whom 
he could not trust, he posted on his left, protecting 



250 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

them as much as he could by the elephants. His 
own place was on the right wing. Here he had his 
Spanish infantry, veteran soldiers whom he had often 
led to victory. The left wing of the Romans which 
was opposed to him was led by the Consul Livius. 
Here the struggle was long and obstinate. The 
elephants at first did good service to their side. 
Afterwards, maddened by the wounds which they 
received, they trampled down friend and foe alike. 
After a while, Nero, repeating the same tactics which 
had made him leave his own weakened army facing 
Hannibal to help his colleague, withdrew some of the 
troops from the Roman right wing, and charged 
the flank of the enemy. The Spaniards could not 
resist this new attack. The Gauls, who had broken 
into the stores of wine and had drunk to excess, were 
cut down where they stood, or lay helpless on the 
ground. The rout was complete. Hasdrubal would 
not survive so terrible a defeat. He set spurs to his 
horse, charged the Roman line, and fell fighting with 
the courage that became the son of Hamilcar and 
brother of Hannibal. The loss of the Carthaginians 
is said to have been 56,000. This is a manifest exag- 
geration, for Hasdrubal could not have had so many 
in his army. Whatever were the numbers, it was a 
decisive victory. There could now be no doubt that 
Rome, not Carthage, was to be the conqueror of the 
Second Punic War. I may conclude this chapter by 
quoting part of the splendid ode in which Horace, 
singing the praises of another Nero,i dwells on the 
achievement of his great ancestor. 

' Tiberius Claudius Nero, afterwards the Emperor Tiberius. 



ODE FROM HORACE. 25 1 

What thou, Rome, dost the Neros owe, 

Let dark Metaurus river say, 
And Hasdrubal, thy vanquished foe, 

And that auspicious day 
Which through the scattered gloom broke forth with smihng ray. 

When joy again to Latium came, 

Nor longer through her towns at ease 

The fatal Lybian swept, like flame 
Among the forest trees. 
Or Eurus' headlong gu^t across Sicilian seas. 

Thenceforth, for with success they toiled, 
Rome's youth in vigour waxed amain, 
And temples, ravaged and despoiled 
By Punic hordes profane, 
Upraised within their shrines beheld their gods again. 

Till spoke forth Hannibal at length : 

" Like stags, of ravening wolves the prey, 
Why rush to grapple with their strength, 
From whom to steal away 
Our loftiest triumph is, they leave for us to-day ? 

" That race, inflexible as bi-ave. 

From Ilium quenched in flames who bore. 

Across the wild Etruscan wave, 
Their babes, their grandsires hoar. 
And all their sacred things to the Ansonian shore ; 

" Like oak, by sturdy axes lopped 

Of all its boughs, which once the brakes 
Of shaggy Algidus o'ertopped. 
Its loss its glory makes. 
And from the very steel fresh strength and spirit takes. 

" Not Hydra, cleft through all its trunk, 
With fresher vigour waxed to spread, 

Till even Alcides' spirit shrunk ; 
Nor yet hath Colchis dread, 
Or Echionean Thebes more fata! monster bred, 



252 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



" In ocean plunge it, and more bright 

It rises ; scatter it, and lo ! 
Its unscathed victors it will smite 
With direful overthrow, 
And Rome's proud dames shall tell of many a routed foe. 

" No m.essenger in boastful pride 
Shall I to Carthage send again ; 
Our every hope it died, it died, 
When Hasdrubal was slain. 
And with his fall our name's all-conquering star did wane.'" * 

Nero returned in haste to his army, and ordered 
the head of Hasdrubal to be thrown in front of the 
Carthaginian outposts. It was carried to Hannibal, 
and recognized by him. " I see," he said, " the doom 
of Carthage." The next day he retreated into the 
extreme south of Italy. 

^ I have borrowed the version of Sir Theodore Martin. 




I 



XIV. 

THE LAST STRUGGLE. 

For more than three years after the fatal day of 
Metaurus, Hannibal maintained himself in Italy, It 
was only the extreme south of the peninsula, the 
mountainous country of Bruttii, that he held ; and 
even here, tliough the Roman generals were con- 
tent to leave him alone, knowing well how formidable 
he still was in the field, he was obliged to draw his 
defences within still narrowing limits. His head- 
quarters were at Crotona. Near this place he built 
an altar to Juno, and placed on it a tablet with an 
inscription in Carthaginian and Greek, giving a sum- 
mary of his campaigns in Italy, with the number of 
battles won, towns taken, and enemies slain. Livy 
bestows hearty praise on his conduct at this time. " I 
know not," he says, " whether the man was more ad- 
mirable in prosperity or in adversity. For thirteen 
years, far away from home, he waged war, and waged 
it not with an army of his own countrymen, but with 
a miscellaneous crowd gathered from all nations — 
men who had neither laws, nor customs, nor language 
in common, with different dress, different arms, dif- 
ferent worship, I may say, different gods. And yet 
he kept them together by so close a tie that the}- 



254 ^^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

never quarrelled among themselves or mutinied 
against him, and this though he was often without 
money for their pay. Even after Hasdrubal's death, 
when he had nothing but a corner of Italy left to him, 
his camp was as quiet as ever." 

Hannibal was of course unwilling finally to give up 
the great scheme of his life. He hoped against hope 
that something might yet happen which would give 
him a chance of carrying it out. Rome had other 
enemies besides Carthage who might yet be united 
against her. There was Antiochus in Syria, and 
Philip in Macedonia. He lived to see them both 
engaged in war with Rome, and both conquered. If 
he could only have given them something of his own 
foresight, and united them against the common enemy, 
he might even yet have succeeded in his great scheme. 
But want of wisdom, or want of energy, or want of 
courage, made them hold back, and the opportunity 
was lost. 

One effort, indeed, was made to help him. His 
youngest brother Mago, seeing that nothing could be 
done in Spain, landed with all the forces that he could 
raise, and with what were sent him from home, in 
Liguria. On his way he possessed himself of the 
island now called Minorca, where Port Mahon (Mago's 
Harbour) still preserves the memory of his visit. He 
had some success in rallying the Gauls to his stan- 
dard, but he accgmplished nothing of importance. So 
far as his object \vas to make a diversion in favour of 
Hannibal, he failed. 

In 204 Scipio crossed over from Sicily to Africa. 
His first movements were not very successful. He 



SCIPIO AND SYPHAX. 257 

began the siege of Utica, but was compelled to raise 
it, and to retire to a strong position on the sea-coast, 
where he was protected by the united strength of his 
fleet and his army. Here he wintered, and early the 
following year began again active operations. He 
had two armies opposed to him — that of Carthage, 
commanded by Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, and that 
of King Syphax. In his own camp was Masinissa, 
who, though he had lost his kingdom, and indeed had 
barely escaped with his life, was without doubt a very 
a very valuable counsellor and ally. 

King Syphax had conceived the hope that he might 
be able to act as mediator between Rome and Car- 
thage. He now proposed a peace, in which the chief 
condition was that Hannibal should evacuate Italy 
and Scipio Africa. Scipio answered that these were 
terms which could not be accepted, but gave him to 
understand that he was ready to listen to other pro- 
posals. Envoys went backwards and forwards be- 
tween the two camps. On the part of the king there 
was, it would seem, a genuine belief that peace might 
be made ; Scipio's envoys were really nothing else 
than so many spies. He was waiting for the oppor- 
tunity of carrying out a scheme which had possibly 
been invented by himself, or, as is more probable, 
suggested by Masinissa. This scheme was to set fire 
to the camps of the two hostile armies. These camps 
consisted of huts which would readily burn, and the 
chief thing wanted was to put the enemy completely 
off his guard. Scipio can scarcely be acquitted of 
something like treachery in this affair. There was 
virtually a truce between him and Syphax. While 



258 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

negotiations for peace were going on, the king 
naturally supposed himself to be safe from attack. 

When all his preparations were complete, Scipio 
divided his army into two. With half he was himself 
to attack the Carthaginian camp ; the other half he 
put under the command of his friend Laelius, who 
was assisted by Masinissa. The two armies marched 
out of the camp at night, and Laelius and Masinissa 
advanced to the camp of Syphax. While the former 
of these two remained in reserve, the latter under- 
took the work of setting the camp on fire. The 
scheme succeeded perfectly. " The camp seemed 
framed," says Polybius, who doubtless heard the 
story from Laelius himself, " for the very purpose of 
being set on fire." The flames spread rapidly ; and 
no one had any suspicion but that the fire had hap- 
pened by accident. Some perished in their tents ; 
many were trampled to death in the confusion ; and 
nearly all who contrived to escape out of the camp 
were cut down by the Romans. 

At first the Carthaginians in the neighbouring camp 
thought, as their allies had thought, that the fire was 
accidental. Some of them ran to help ; others stood 
gazing at the sight. None had any notion that the 
enemy was at hand ; they were therefore actually 
unarmed when the Romans fell upon them. In a 
few minutes the second camp was in the same con- 
dition as the first. Hasdrubal, with a small body of 
cavalry, escaped ; Syphax also contrived to save him- 
self, but the two armies were virtually destroyed. 

Syphax had thought of reconciling himself to Rome ; 
but his wife Sophonisba prevailed upon him to give 



HANNIBAL RECALLED. 259 

them up. He raised another army, which was soon 
joined by Hasdrubal, who had also contrived to get 
together a new force, among them being four thou- 
sand mercenaries from Spain. A battle followed, in 
which Scipio was again victorious. 

There was now only one course left to Carthage, 
and that was to recall Hannibal and Mago. Mago, 
who had been defeated by the Roman forces just 
before this summons reached him, set sail with what 
was left of his army, but died of his wounds before 
he reached home. Hannibal received the com- 
mand to return with indignation and grief Livy 
gives — we know not on what authority — the very 
words in which, " gnashing his teeth and groaning, 
and scarcely able to restrain his tears," he answered 
the envoys of the Carthaginian Senate. " They call me 
back at last in plain words ; but they have long since 
implicitly called me by refusing me reinforcements 
and money. Hannibal has been conquered, not by 
the Roman people, which he has defeated and routed 
a hundred times, but by the jealousy of the Senate 
of Carthage. It will not be Scipio that will exult 
in the disgrace of my return so much as Hanno, who, 
having no other means of overthrowing the power of 
my family, has done it by the ruin of his own country." 
Hanno, it will be remembered, was the leader of the 
peace-party. Wrathful, however, as he was, he made 
no delay in obeying the summons. He had his ships, 
indeed, ready prepared for this service. " Seldom," 
says Livy, "has an exile left his country with a 
sadder heart than was Hannibal's when he departed 
from the land of his enemies. Asfain and again he 



26o THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

looked back on the shores which he was leaving, 
and cursed himself that he had not led his soldiers 
dripping with the blood of Cannae to Rome itself 
' Scipio,' he said, * has ventured to attack Carthage ; 
but I wasted my time at Casilinum and Cumse and 
Nola." 

When the news of his departure reached Rome, a 
public thanksgiving was ordered. The veteran sol- 
dier Fabius had bestowed upon him the unexampled 
honour of a wreath of oak leaves, given, not as was 
commonly the case, for having saved the life of a 
citizen, but for having saved his country. A few 
months afterwards he died, in extreme old age, 
having been spared to see the dearest wish of his 
heart, Italy freed from the invader. 

Hannibal's movements after his landing in Africa — 
from which he had been absent more than thirty 
years — are not easily followed. Indeed the whole 
history of this time is somewhat obscure. We hear 
of a truce between Carthage and Rome, which the 
former treacherously violated ; of favourable terms of 
peace offered by Scipio, and of a fruitless interview 
between the two rival generals ; but it is difficult to 
make out of our authorities a clear and consistent 
account. I shall pass on at once to the great battle 
which brought the Second Punic War to an end. Of 
this we have full details. It was fought at Zama, on 
October 19th according to some authors, according 
to others in the spring.^ Scipio arranged his army 

' Possibly the discrepancy may be partly accounted for by the de- 
rangement of the Roman calendar of this time. The months and the 
seasons were not by any means in accordance. 



ZAMA. 261 

according to the usual Roman fashion, but did not fill 
up the intervals between the cohorts or companies/ 
and he put more space than usual between the lines. 
His object was to lessen the danger from the ele- 
phants. Laelius with the Roman cavalry was posted 
on the left, Masinissa with the African horse on the 
right. The light-armed troops were placed in front, 
with orders to retire, if they found themselves hard 
pressed by the elephants, through the intervals be- 
tween the lines. 

Hannibal posted his elephants, of which he had 
eighty, in front. Behind these was a mixed multitude 
of mercenaries ; behind these, again, the native Car- 
thaginian troopS; who now, in the extremity of danger, 
appear again in the field ; and in the third line the 
veterans whom he had brought with him from Italy. 
On the left wing he posted his African, on the right 
his Carthaginian cavalry. 

The battle was begun by the elephants. These 
creatures did at least as much harm to friends as 
to foes.2 They are said, indeed, to have caused so 
much confusion among the Carthaginian cavalry that 
Laelius was easily able to rout this part of the hostile 
arm^y. 

In the centre of the two armies the day at first 
went in favour of Hannibal. His mercenaries, tried! 
and skilful soldiers, were more than a match for the 
unpractised Romans. If they had been properly 

' The intervals of the first line were usually filled up in the second, 
and those of the second in the third. 

- The trained animals had long since been used up. We hear, not 
long before this time, of one Hauno being sent to hunt for fresh ones. 



262 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

supported by the second line they might have won 
the day. But the citizen-soldiers made no attempt to 
advance. It was only when they were attacked by 
the advancing Romans, and even, Polybius adds, by 
the mercenaries, now infuriated at being thus deserted, 
that they began to defend themselves. This they did 
with the greatest fury, striking indiscriminately at 
friend and foe. Hannibal's own force, which had 
closed its lines against the fugitives from the routed 
divisions, had still to be dealt with. Here the battle 
was long and obstinate. The combatants fell where 
they fought. But Laelius and Masinissa (for the 
Numidian prince had also been successful in his part 
of the field) returned from their pursuit of the Car- 
thaginian cavalry, and fell upon the rear of Hannibal's 
troops, and broke their lines. A general rout ensued. 
Hannibal made his way with a small body of cavalry 
to Adrumetum. Of the rest few escaped. Twenty 
thousand were killed on the field of battle ; as many 
more were taken prisoners. The Roman loss was 
fifteen hundred. " Such," says Pol3^bius, " was the 
battle between Hannibal and Scipio; the battle which 
gave to the Romans the sovereignty of the world." 

Hannibal collected about six thousand men, the 
remains of his army, and with this force made his 
way back to Carthage. The government had opened 
negotiations for peace, and their envoys had just 
returned, bringing back Scipio's terms. They were 
briefly these ; 

I. Carthage was to retain its African possessions; 
was to be independent ; was not to be compelled to 
receive a Roman g-arrison. 



TERMS OF PEACE. 263 

2. All prisoners and deserters were to be surren- 
dered. 

3. All ships of war, except ^en, were to be given up, 
and all elephants. 

4. Carthage should not make war on any state 
outside Africa ; nor on any within it, without leave 
first obtained from the Romans. 

5. King Masinissa should have restored to him all 
that he or his ancestors had possessed. 

6. The Roman army was to be provisioned and 
paid till peace was formally concluded. 

7. An indemnity of ten thousand talents, and an 
annual tribute of two hundred, to be paid. 

8. One hundred hostages, to be chosen by the 
Roman commander-in-chief, to be handed over as 
security. 

When these terms were recited in the Carthaginian 
Senate, a senator rose to speak. Hannibal laid hold 
of him, and dragged him down. The assembly 
received this act with angry shouts. " Pardon me," 
said Hannibal, " if my ignorance has led me to offend 
against any of your forms. I left my country at nine 
years of age, and returned to it at forty-five. The 
real cause of my offence was my care for our common 
country. It is astonishing to me that any Cartha- 
ginian who knows the truth should not be ready to 
worship his good fortune, when he finds Rome ready 
to deal with us so mercifully. Do not debate these 
conditions ; consent to them unanimously, and pray 
to all the gods that they may be ratified by the 
Roman Senate." 

Ratified they were, though not, it would seem, till the 



264 THE SrORY OF CARTHAGE. 

following year. We catch a glimpse of the old days 
before men had learnt the use of iron, when we read 
how the heralds went to Carthage carrying with them 
the knives of flint with which the animals offered in 
sacrifice were to be slain. The Carthaginians surren- 
dered all their ships of war, their elephants, the 
deserters who had come over to them, and as many 
as four thousand prisoners. The ships of one kind 
and another numbered five hundred. Scipio ordered 
them to be towed out to sea and burnt. " The sight 
of the flames was as terrrible," says Livy, " to the 
vanquished people as would have been that of their 
city on fire." 

When the indemnit}^ came to be paid it was diffi- 
cult to find the money ; and there were loud murmurs 
in the Senate at the sacrifices which it would be 
necessary to make. One of the members complained 
to the House that Hannibal had been seen to laugh ; 
and this though he was really the cause of all their 
troubles. Then the great man spoke out. " If you 
could see my heart as easily as you can my face, you 
would know that my laughter comes not from a 
joyful heart, but from one almost maddened by 
trouble. And yet my laughter is not so unreasonable 
as your tears. You ought to have wept when our 
arms were taken from us and our ships were burnt. 
But no ; you were silent when you saw your country 
stripped ; but now you lament, as if this were the 
death-day of Carthage, because you have to furnish 
part of the tribute out of your private means. I fear 
me much that you will soon find that this is the least 
of the trouble you will have to bear." 



XV. 

HANNIBAL IN EXILE. 

It was true that, as the discontented senator had 
said, Hannibal had been the cause of the troubles of 
Carthage ; still he was too great a man to be any- 
where but in the first place ; and for some years he 
practically governed the State. He seems to have 
done this new work well. The Court of Judges at 
Carthage had usurped a power which did not belong 
to them. Every man's property, character, and life 
were at their disposal ; and they were unscrupulous 
in dealing with it. Hannibal set himself to bring 
about a change ; he carried the people with him ; 
the office of judge became annual, and it was filled 
up by election. It is a change that does not alto- 
gether commend itself to us ; but it was probably 
required by the peculiar condition of the country. 

Another reform concerned the public revenue. 
Hannibal made a searching inquiry into what came 
in, and what was spent, and he found that a very 
large proportion of the whole was embezzled. He 
stated these discoveries in a public assembly. The 
expenses of the country might be met, the tribute to 
Rome paid, and taxation nevertheless lightened, if 
only the revenue were honestly collected and honestly 



266 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

spent. It was only too natural that these proceedings 
should make many enemies. And besides those who 
were furious at the loss of their unjust gains, there 
were doubtless some who were honestly afraid of 
what Hannibal was aiming at. If he was making 
Carthage richer and more powerful, it was that he 
might plunge her again into a war with Rome. So, 
from one cause or the other, a strong party was 
raised against him. His enemies had, it is said, the 
meanness to accuse him to the Roman Government. 
He was planning, they said, a new war in concert 
with Antiochus, king of Syria. The Romans were on 
the point of war with this prince, and were ready to 
suspect their old enemy. An embassy was sent to 
Carthage, in spite of the opposition of Scipio, to 
demand that he should be given up. Ostensibly the 
object of their invasion was to settle a dispute between 
Carthage and Masinissa. 

Hannibal knew the truth, and resolved to fly. To 
put his enemies off their guard, he showed no kind of 
alarm, but walked about in public as usual. But he 
took horse at night, reached the coast, and embarked 
in a ship which, in anticipation of such a need, he 
had kept in readiness, and sailed to Cercina (Kerkena). 
It was necessary to conceal the fact of his flight, and 
he gave out that he was going as ambassador to Tyre. 
But the harbour of the island happened to be full of 
merchant-ships, and the risk of discovery was great. 
He resolved accordingly to escape. The captains were 
invited to a great entertainment, and were asked to 
lend their sails and yards for the construction of a 
tent. The revel was long and late. Before it was 



HANNIBAL WITH ANTIOCHUS. 267 

over Hannibal was gone, and the dismantled ships 
could not be made ready for several hours. From 
Cercina he sailed to Tyre, where he was received 
with great honours, and from Tyre again to the 
port of Antioch. Antiochus had left that place 
and was at Ephesus, and thither Hannibal followed 
him. 

Antiochus of Syria, fourth in descent from Seleucus, 
one of the Macedonian generals who had shared be- 
tween them the empire of Alexander, has somehow 
acquired the title of the " Great." He had little that 
was great about him except, perhaps, his ambition. 
His treatment of Hannibal, whether it was the result 
of weakness or of jealousy, was foolish in the extreme. 
He did not take his advice, and he would not employ 
him. His advice had been to act at once. Rome at 
this time (195 B.C.) had to deal with many enemies. 
The Gauls especially were giving her much trouble. 
If Antiochus could have made up his mind to attack 
her immediately, the result might have been different 
to what it was. As it was he lingered and delayed, 
and when at last, two years afterwards, he made up 
his mind to act, the opportunity was lost. In 192 he 
crossed over into Greece, and was defeated with heavy 
loss the following year at Thermopylae. Hannibal 
was not employed in this campaign. But he was sent 
to equip and to command a fleet. There was nothing 
strange in this variety of employment ; for then — and 
indeed the same has been the case till quite recent 
times — the same men would command fleets and 
armies indifferently. He was attacked by a greatly 
superior fleet belonging to the island of Rhodes, then 



268 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

a great naval power, and, though successful where he 
commanded in person, was defeated. 

In the same year (190) was fought the great battle 
of Magnesia. Whether Hannibal was present at it 
we do not know ; but an anecdote is told of him 
which belongs to this time. Antiochus had collected 
a great army — some sixty or seventy thousand in 
number — to do battle with the Romans. It had been 
gathered from the cities of Greece and from Western 
Asia, and their dress and armour was as splendid as 
it was various. The king looked with pride on the 
ranks glittering with gold and silver. " Will not this 
be enough for the Romans ? " he asked of Hannibal 
who was standing by his side. " Yes," said he, with 
a grim jest, " yes, enough even for them, though they 
are the greediest nation on the earth!" But it was 
of the spoils, not of the fighting strength of the army, 
that he was speaking. 

The battle of Magnesia ended, as Hannibal had 
expected, in the utter defeat of the Syrian army. 
Antiochus was advised to sue for peace. Two years 
afterwards (188) it was granted to him, one of the 
conditions being that he should give to Rome such of 
her enemies as he had received at his court. He ac- 
cepted the condition, but gave his guest an opportunity 
of escaping. 

Various stories are told of Hannibal's movements 
after his flight from the court of Antiochus. Accord- 
ing to one account he sought refuge for a time in 
Crete. A story is told of him here which very likely 
is not true, but which shows the common belief in his 
ingenuity and readiness of resource. He suspected 



HANNIBAL IN BITHYNIA. 269 

the Cretans of coveting the large treasure which he 
carried about with him. To deceive them he filled a 
number of wine-jars with lead, which had over it a 
thin covering of gold and silver. These he deposited 
with much ceremony in the presence of the chief men 
of the island in the temple of Diana. His real treasure 
meanwhile was hidden in some hollow brazen figures 
which were allowed to lie, apparently uncared for, in the 
porch of his house. From Crete he is said to have 
visited Armenia, and to have founded in that country 
the city of Artaxata. It is certain, however, that he 
spent the last years of his life with Prusias, king of 
Bithynia. Prusias was at war with Eumenes of 
Pergamus, a firm friend of Rome, and Hannibal 
willingly gave him his help. We need not believe 
the story which he tells us how he vanquished enemies 
in a sea-fight by filling a number of jars with venomous 
snakes and throwing them on board the hostile ships. 
For some years he was left unmolested in this 
refuge. But in 183 the Romans sent an embassy to 
Prusias to demand that he should be given up. The 
demand was one which the king did not feel able to 
resist, and he sent soldiers at once to seize him. 
Hannibal had always expected some such result. 
He knew that Rome could never forgive him for what 
he had done, and he did not trust his host. Indeed 
he must have known that a king of Bithynia could 
not refuse a request of the Romans if it was seriously 
made. The story of his end, ornamented as such 
stories commonly are, tells us how he made seven 
ways of getting out of his house, and that finding 
them all beset with soldiers, he called for the poison, 



270 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

which was kept always ready for such an emergency, 
and drank it off. Some writers say that he carried 
the poison with him in a ring — the ring which 
Juvenal, when he uses the example of Hannibal to 
show the vanity of a soldier's ambition, describes as 
"the avenger of the day of Cannae." Livy gives us 
what profess to be his last words. " Let me free the 
Roman people from their long anxiety, since they 
think it tedious to wait for an old man's death. 
Flaminius [this was the Roman ambassador] will gain 
no great or famous victory over a helpless victim of 
treachery. As to the way in which the Roman 
character has changed, this day is proof enough. The 
grandfathers of these men sent to King Pyrrhus, when 
he had an army fighting against them in Italy, warn- 
ing him to beware of poison ; but they have sent 
an ambassador to suggest to Prusias the crime of 
murdering a guest." He was in his sixty-fourth or 
sixty-fifth year when he died. 

Of Hannibal's character, as of the history of his 
country, we have to judge from the narratives of 
enemies. His military skill is beyond all doubt. In 
that, it is probable, he has never been surpassed. His 
courage also was undoubted, though he is expressly 
praised for the discretion with which he avoided any 
needless exposure of his life. The testimony to the 
temperance of his habits is equally clear. The chief 
charges brought against him are treachery, cruelty, 
and avarice. From personal avarice he was certainly 
free, but a general who has to make war support itself, 
who has to feed, clothe, and pay a great army in a 
foreign country, with but rare and scanty supplies 



CHARACTER OF HANNIBAL. 27 1 

from home, cannot be scrupulous. About the charge 
of cruelty it is not easy to speak. What has been 
said about Hannibal's alleged avarice applies in a way 
to this other accusation. A general situated as was 
Hannibal could not but be stern and even merciless 
in his dealings with enemies. As to treachery, we 
know that "Punic faith" passed among the Romans 
into a proverb for dishonesty ; and "faithless" is the 
epithet, as we have seen, which Horace applies to the 
great general. But we find no special grounds for 
the charge, while we may certainly doubt whether the 
Roman generals showed such conspicuous good faith 
as to be in a good position for censuring others. 
There was no more honourable Roman than Scipio, 
but Scipio's treacherous attack on Syphax during the 
progress of the negotiations is at least as bad as any- 
thing that is charged against Hannibal. 




XVI. 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 



The death of Hannibal did not remove the sus- 
picion of Rome that Carthage might be plotting some 
mischief The conditions imposed upon her by the 
Peace of Hannibal (as the treaty made after the 
battle of Zama was called) had not permanently dis- 
abled her. She had lost her dominions but not her 
trade ; her war-ships had been destroyed, but not the 
ships of her commerce ; and she had always in her 
treasury the gold with which to hire new armies. 
Only twenty years had passed since the conclusion of 
the peace, when she offered to pay up at once the 
balance of the indemnity which was to have been 
spread over fifty years. The Romans preferred keep- 
ing this hold over their ancient enemies to receiving 
the money, but they were alarmed at this proof of 
how completely the wealth of Carthage was restored. 
Some ten years later, when war with Macedonia was 
threatening, news came to Rome that the envoys of 
the Macedonian king had been received at Carthage. 
Doubtless the envoys had been sent ; and it is j)rob- 
able that they found some powerful persons ready to 
listen to them — for there was still a war-party in 
Carthage — but there is no reason to believe that the 



CATO'S HOSTILITY TO CARTHAGE. 273 

government had had any deahngs with the enemies 
of Rome. There was one Roman statesmen by whom 
these suspicions were very strongly felt. This was 
Marcus Porcius Cato, commonly called the Elder 
Cato, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato 
of Utica, the republican who killed himself sooner 
than live under the despotism of Csesar. Cato had 
served throughout the campaigns of the Second Punic 
War, and had not forgotten his experiences of that 
time. He had been sent to inquire into the causes of 
a war that had broken out between Carthage and 
King Masinissa, and he had been much struck by the 
proofs of wealth and power that he saw during his 
visit, the crowded population of the city and territory, 
the well-appointed fleet, and the well-filled armouries. 
Returning to Rome, he related in the Senate what he 
had seen. " This people," he said, " is stronger than 
ever. They are practising war in Africa by way of pre- 
lude to war against you." As he spoke, he threw down 
from a fold in his robe a bunch of ripe figs. " The 
country that bears these," he cried, as the senators 
admired the beautiful fruit, " is but three days' jour- 
ney from here." One is not certain whether he meant 
that it was so near as to be dangerous, or that it could 
be easily reached. Anyhow, from that time he never 
ceased to take every opportunity that occurred of 
expressing his opinion in the Senate. Whatever the 
matter might be that was being voted upon, he added 
the words, " And I also think that Carthage ought to 
be blotted out." With equal pertinacity one of the 
Scipios (surnamed Nasica, or " Scipio of the Pointed 
Nose), a near kinsman of the conqueror of Zama, 



274 ^-^-^ STORY OF- CARTHAGE. 

added to every vote, " And I also think that Carthage 
ought to be left." 

Carthage had a dangerous enemy at home in King 
Masinissa. He had begun life, as we have seen, by 
serving with Hasdrubal Barca in Spain, had then 
changed sides, and fought on the side of the Romans 
at the battle of Zama. He had been handsomely 
rewarded for these services. His father's dominions 
had been restored to him, and to these had been 
added the greater part of the kingdom of Syphax. 
For more than fifty years he was continually engaged 
in enlarging his borders at the expense of Carthage, 
and he always felt that he could rely on the help, or 
at least the countenance, of the Romans. Carthage 
was forbidden to make war on her neighbours in 
Africa without the leave of Rome, and all that she 
could do in return for Masinissa's aggressions was to 
send to appeal to that power to protect her against 
the wrongs that she was compelled to suffer. More 
than once the Romans sent commissioners to inquire 
into her complaints. Once, indeed, possibly oftener, 
these commissioners decided against Masinissa, but 
they generally left the matter unsettled. Anyhow, the 
king went on with his encroachments, and generally 
contrived to keep what he had laid his hands upon. 

In 151 this quarrel broke out into open war. Masi- 
nissa had a party of his own in Carthage. The demo- 
cratic or war party expelled forty of ito principal 
members, imposing at the same time an oath upon the 
people that they would never allow them to return. 
The exiles fled to the king and urged him to make 
war. He was willing enough, for he had his eye on a 



AFRICANUS THE YOUNGER. 275 

town which he particularly coveted ; but he first sent 
one of his sons on an embassy to Carthage to demand 
redress. The prince was not admitted within the 
works, and was even attacked on his way home. 
Masinissa then laid siege to the town. The Car- 
thaginians sent Hasdrubal, their commander-in-chief, 
against him. They were joined by two of the king's 
chief officers, who deserted, bringing with them as 
many as six thousand horse. In some slight engage- 
ments that followed Hasdrubal was victorious ; .and 
the king made a feint of retreat, and drew Hasdrubal 
after him into a region where supplies could not easily 
be obtained. A battle soon followed. The old king 
— he was eighty-eight years of age — commanded in 
person, riding after the fashion of his country, without 
saddle or stirrup. No very decided result followed, 
but the king, on the whole, had the advantage. There 
was present that day, as spectator of the conflict, a 
young Roman who had much to do with the conclu- 
sion of the story of Carthage. To give him the full 
title which he bears in history, this was Publius 
Cornelius Scipio yEmilianus Africanus Minor. He 
was a son of a distinguished Roman general, ^Emilius 
Paullus, the conqueror of Pydna,i and grandson of 
the yEmilius Paullus who fell af Cannae. He was 
adopted by the elder son of the Scipio Africanus, the 
conqueror of Zama, whose weak health prevented 
him from taking any part in public affairs.^ He had 

' Pydna was the great battle (fought in 169) by which the Macedonian 
kingdom was brought to an end. See "The Story of Rome," p. 163. 

- The young reader may observe that he took the names of the 
family into which he was adopted, adding to them that of his own gens, 
altered from ^milius into ^milianus, according to the practice in case 
of adoption. 



276 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

been serving with a Roman army in Spain, and had 
come to Masinissa for the purpose of purchasing 
elephants. He had privilege of seeing the battle 
from a hill that overlooked the plain, and afterwards 
said (we probably get the story from his friend Poly- 
bius) that, though he had been present at many 
battles, he had never been so much pleased. " I saw," 
said he, " one hundred and ten thousand men meet in 
combat. It was a sight such as two only have seen 
before me, Zeus from the top of Ida, and Poseidon 
from Samothrace, in the Trojan war." 

Scipio undertook to arbitrate between the two 
parties. The Carthaginians offered to give up the 
country round Emporia, or the Markets (now Gabes 
and Terba), and to pay two hundred talents down 
and eight hundred more in instalments ; but when the 
king demanded also the surrender of the fugitives, 
the negotiations were broken off. Hasdrubal ought 
now to have taken up a position which it would have 
been possible for him to hold, but he neglected to do 
so. He expected another offer from Masinissa, and 
he also had hopes that the Romans would interfere 
in his favour. His delay was fatal to him. Famine, 
and the fever that always follows on famine, wasted 
his army. In the end he was obliged to accept the 
most humiliating terms. The exiles of Masinissa's 
party were to be taken back into the city ; the fugitives 
were to be surrendered ; an indemnity of five thou- 
sand talents was to be paid, and he and his soldiers 
were to pass through the hostile camp, unarmed and 
with but a single garment apiece. The helpless 
fugitives were attacked by one of the king's sons at 



EXPEDITION AGAINST CARTHAGE. 277 

the head of a force of cavalry, and cruelly slaughtered. 
Only a very few, among whom was Hasdrubal him- 
self, returned to Carthage, 

But worse remained behind. The Carthaginian 
government condemned to death Hasdrubal and 
those who had been most active in promoting the 
war. But when the ambassadors whom they sent 
to Rom.e pleaded this proceeding as a ground for 
acquittal, they were asked, " Why did you not con- 
demn them before, not after the defeat ? " To this 
there was no answer ; and the Roman Senate voted 
that the Carthaginian explanation was not sufficient. 
" Tell us," said the unhappy men, " what we must 
do?" "You must satisfy the Roman People," was 
the ambiguous answer. When this was reported at 
Carthage, a second embassy was sent, imploring to be 
definitely told what they must do. These were dis- 
missed with the answer, "The Carthaginians know 
this already." Rome had accepted the pitiless counsel 
of Cato, and Carthage was to be blotted out. If there 
was any doubt, it was dismissed when envoys came 
from Utica offering the submission of that city. The 
consuls of the year, Manilius and Censorinus, were 
at once dispatched with a fleet and an army. Their 
secret instructions were that they were not to be 
satisfied till Carthage was destroyed. The forces 
which they commanded amounted to nearly a hundred 
thousand men. The expedition was popular ; for the 
prospects of booty were great, and volunteers of all 
ranks thronged to take part in it. The news that the 
fleet had sailed was the first intimation that Carthage 
received that war had been declared. 



278 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

The Carthaginian government still hoped that an 
absolute submission might save them. They sent 
another embassy to Rome with full powers to grant 
any terms that might be asked. The answer that 
they received was this : " If the Carthaginians will give 
three hundred hostages from their noblest families, 
and fulfil all other conditions within thirty days, they 
shall retain their independence and the possession of 
their territory." But secret instructions were also sent 
to the consuls that they were to abide, whatever 
might happen, by their first instructions. 

The hostages were sent, after a miserable scene of 
parting from their friends. But few believed that 
submission would be of any avail. And indeed it 
was soon seen to be useless. The consuls demanded 
that the arms in the city should be given up. The de- 
mand was accepted. Two hundred thousand weapons, 
more darts and javelins than could be counted, and two 
thousand catapults were given up. Then the consuls 
spoke again. " You must leave Carthage ; we have 
resolved to destroy this city. You may remove your 
furniture and property to some other place, but it 
must be not less than ten miles from the sea." And 
they added some reasons, which must have sounded 
like the cruellest mockery, why they should be con- 
tent with this decision. " You will be better away 
from the sea," they said in effect ; " it will only re- 
mind you of the greatness which you have lost. It 
is a dangerous element, which before this has raised 
to great prosperity and brought to utter ruin other 
countries besides yours. Agriculture is a far safer 
and more profitable employment. And," he added, 



WAR DECLARED. 2yg 

" we are keeping our promise that Carthage should be 
independent. It is the men, not the walls and build- 
ings of the city, that constitute the real Carthage." ^ 

The return of the envoys had been expected at 
Carthage with the utmost impatience. As they 
entered the gate of the city they were almost 
trampled to death by the crowd. At last they made 
their way into the Senate-house. Then they told 
their story, the people waiting in a dense throng out- 
side the doors of the chamber. When it was told, 
a loud cry of dismay and rage went up from the as- 
sembly ; and the people, hearing it, rushed in. A fearful 
scene of violence followed. Those who had advised the 
surrender of the hostages and of the arms were fiercely 
attacked. Some of them were even torn to pieces. 
The envoys themselves were not spared, though their 
only offence had been to bring bad news. Any un- 
lucky Italians, whom business had happened to detain 
in the city, fell victims to the popular fury. A few 
more wisely busied themselves with making such pre- 
parations for defence as were possible, for of course 
there was but one alternative now possible. Indeed 
the Senate declared war that same day. 

^ It is difficult to believe that these abominable sophistries were ever 
really uttered. But we have good reason for supposing that Appi an, 
from whom we get the report of the Consuls' speech, copied it from 
Polybius, an excellent authority. The historians of antiquity, however, 
had a passion for patting speeches into the mouths of their characters, 
and were not always particular about their authenticity. 



XVII. 

THE SIEGE AND FALL OF CARTHAGE. 

The Carthaginian government did their best to 
defend their city. One Hasdrubal, the same that had 
been condemned to death in the vain hope of pro- 
pitiating the Romans, was appointed to command the 
forces outside the city ; another had the control of 
those within the walls. The manufacture of arms 
was carried on night and day, by men and women 
alike, even the temples and sacred enclosures being 
turned into workshops. A hundred shields, three 
hundred swords, a thousand javelins to be thrown by 
the catapults, were made daily. The women are said 
to have cut off their hair for the cords of the catapults, 
for which the horsehair that was commonly used was 
wanting. 

The wall of Carthage had a circumference of about 
eighteen miles. It was about forty-six feet high, and 
thirty-four feet thick. The height is that of what is 
called the curtain of the wall, i.e. the portions between 
the towers. The towers were of four stories, and much 
higher. Where the sea came up to the fortifications — 
and as the city was built upon a peninsula, this was 
the case with the greater part of the circuit — a single 
wall was deemed sufificient ; but on the land side, ie. 



THE WALLS OF CARTHAGE. 



281 



to the north and 
south, the wall was 
triple. Appian tells 
that the three walls 
were of equal height 
and breadth. This 
is incredible, because 
such an arrangement 
would have been use- 
less. The first wall 
once taken would 
have given the be- 
siegers such an ad- 
vantage that the 
second would have 
soon become unten- 
able. No trace of 
any such kind of 
fortification can be 
discovered either at 
Carthage or in any 
ancient town. The 
real meaning of the 
author — possibly 
Polybius — from 
whom Appian quo- 
ted, seems to have 
been this. There 
were three ditches. 
Behind the inner of 
the three, the wall 
proper was built. 




282 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Then came the advance wall, much lower than the 
wall proper, and in front of this the second ditch ; 
possibly there was an outer defence of palisades, 
itself protected by a third ditch. The traces of 
exactly such a system of fortification are to be 
found at Thapsus. Within the casemates of the 
main wall there was room for three hundred ele- 
phants, four thousand cavalry, and twenty thousand 
infantry. 

The harbours were so arranged that ships had to 
pass through the one to reach the other. The outer 
harbour was meant for merchant ships, and its entrance 
from the sea was closed with iron chains. In the 
inner harbour were kept the ships of war. There was 
an island in it, and on this island, as well as round 
the sides of the harbour, were slips in which two 
hundred and twenty vessels could be placed. The 
island also contained the admiral's house. This was 
so high that he could get a view of all that was going 
on outside. Between the two harbours there was a 
wall so high that it was not possible to look from the 
outer into the inner. There was a separate entrance 
from the town to the outer harbour. The inner or 
military harbour was evidently guarded with the 
greatest care. 

Manilius directed his attack on the landward side 
of the wall ; Censorinus attempted a part which, 
being partly protected by a lagoon, was less strongly 
fortified than the rest. The outer fortifications were 
carried, but no further progress was made. Indeed 
the besiegers had some serious losses, as Hasdrubal, 
with his lieutenants, among whom a certain Himilco, 



THE ROMANS LOSE THEIR ALLY MASINISSA. 285 

surnamed Phamaeas, was conspicuously active, con- 
tinually attacked any detached parties. 

Things seemed more hopeful when Censorinus, 
having filled up part of the lagoon, brought two 
battering-rams to bear on the wall, one of them 
worked by six thousand soldiers, the other by as 
many sailors. The force of these brought down part 
of it ; and the Carthaginians built up again this por- 
tion in the night. The new work was not very strong. 
Then the besieged made a furious sally, set some of 
the works on fire, and made the whole, for a time at 
least, unserviceable. The* next day the Romans at- 
tempted an assault by a part of the breach which had 
not been repaired, but were repulsed with heavy loss. 

Censorinus now found that his crews suffered from 
the climate, for it was the height of summer. Ac- 
cordingly he transferred his ships from the lagoon 
to the open sea. The Carthaginians took every op- 
portunity, when the wind favoured, of sending fire 
ships among the Roman fleet, and thus did it a great 
deal of damage. 

The Roman commanders continued to conduct 
their operations, with little skill and as little success. 
And just at the time when they most needed his help 
they had the misfortu*ne to lose their ally Masinissa. 
There had been a coolness between the old man and 
his Roman friends, he conceiving that he had been 
rudely put aside, and that the task of dealing with 
Carthage had been unfairly taken out of his hands. 
And now when the consuls sent to ask his help — he 
had promised to give it zv/ien they asked for it, and 
this they had been too proud to do — they found him 



286 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

dying. He had completed his ninetieth year, retaining 
to the last his vigour of mind and body. The other 
inveterate enemy of Carthage, the old Cato, had died 
a few months before. Scipio, who had been dis- 
tinguishing himself during the siege, was entrusted 
with the task of dividing the old king's dominion and 
wealth between his three sons. One of these, Gulussa 
by name, became at once an active ally, and was 
found especially helpful in- repelling the attacks of 
Phamaeas with his light cavalry. It was not indeed 
long before Phamaeas himself was induced by Scipio 
to desert his friends. 

A change of commanders, Manilius and Censo- 
rinus giving place to Piso and Mancinus, did not 
bring a change for the better in the conduct of the 
siege. This, in fact, was almost given up, the new 
consuls busying themselves with assaults on the 
neighbouring towns. Calpurnius was particularly un- 
fortunate at Hippo (now Bizerta), where all his siege 
works were destroyed by a sally of the townspeople. 

The spirits of the Carthaginians rose in proportion 
to the discouragement of the Romans. Some of 
Gulussa's cavalry had deserted to them ; and the two 
other sons of Masinissa, though nominally friendly to 
Rome, stood aloof and waited for what might happen. 
Envoys were sent to them and to the independent 
Moors, representing that if Carthage fell they would 
be the next to be conquered. Communications were 
also opened with the Macedonian pretender who was 
then at war with Rome. Unfortunately the Hasdrubal 
who commanded outside the walls coveted the position 
of his namesake in the city. He accused him of 



SCIPIO IN COMMAND. 289 

treachery — it was his misfortune to be closely related 
to Gulussa ; the unhappy man, surprised by the 
charge, faltered in his defence, and was murdered in 
the Senate-house, his senators striking him down 
with the fragments of the benches. 

At Rome every one had expected a speedy end 
to the siege, and there was great vexation and even 
alarm at these long delays. All eyes were fixed on 
the one man who had showed real capacity for 
command, and fixed the more earnestly on account of 
the fortunate name that he bore. It had been a 
Scipio who had brought the war of Hannibal to an 
end ; it was to be a Scipio who should complete his 
work and destroy Carthage itself The young soldier 
went to Rome to stand for the office of ^dile — not, 
we may guess, without some notion of what was going 
to happen. The people elected him to the consulship. 
The consul, who was presiding, protested. Scipio 
was thirty seven years old, and was therefore under 
the legal age. The people insisted ; they were the 
masters of the elections and could choose whom they 
would. The tribunes threatened to suspend the pre- 
siding consul, unless he gave away. He yielded ; as 
did Scipio's colleague when it came to choosing the 
province which each consul should have. This was 
commonly determined by lot, but the people was 
resolved that Scipio should have Africa, and it was 
so arranged. 

The new commander's first exploit was to rescue 
Mancinus from a dangerous position into which he had 
got himself Anxious to do something before he was 
superseded, he led a storming party against a weak 



2go 



THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 



point in the wall, and actually made his way into the 
town. But he was not strong enough to advance, 
and could barely maintain his hold of what he had 
gained. His colleague Piso, though summoned to 
help him, made no movement ; but Scipio, who, on 
reaching Utica, had received a despatch describing 
the situation, hastened to the spot, and carried off 
Mancinus and his party in safety. The two consuls 
shortly afterwards returned to Rome, and Scipio set 




THE HARBOURS OF CARTHAGE (ACCORDING TO BEUL^). 



himself to restore the discipline and order which the 
lax rule of his predecessors had suffered to decay. 
He purged the Roman camp of a crowd of idlers and 
plunderers which had collected there, and left nothing 
but what was manageable and serviceable. His first 
operation was to storm a quarter of the city which 
went by the name of the Megara, and was, it would 
seem the abode of the wealthier class. The assault 




HARBOURS OF CARTHAGE (ACCORDING TO DAUX). 



ATTACK ON THE MEGARA. 



29J 



was made by two parties, one of them led by Scipio 
in person. Neither could make its way over the wall ; 
but a tower, belonging to some private dwelling, 
which had been unwisely allowed to stand though it 
commanded the fortification, was occupied, and some 




ARRANGEMENTS OF THE BERTHS (ACCORDING TO REULlf;). 

of the besiegers made their way from it on to the wall, 
and from the wall into the Megara. They then 
opened one of the gates, and Scipio with a force of 
four thousand men entered. He did not, however, feel 
it safe to remain, for the place was full of gardens, and 
its hedges and watercourses made it difficult grround 




PLAN OF WALL AT BYRSA. 



for the action of troops ; but the operation had its 
results, the most important of which was that the 
army outside the walls, fancying that the city was 
taken, abandoned its camp, and retreated into the 
Byrsa or Upper City. 



294 '^^^ STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

Hasdrubal, enraged at this movement, retaliated 
by a barbarous massacre of all the prisoners in his 
hands. He brought the poor wretches to the edge 
o'f the wall, subjected them to the cruellest tortures, 
and threw them down still alive from the height. 
After such an act the besieged would feel that they 
had no hope of mercy. 

The siege now became almost a blockade. Scipio 
burnt the camp which the outside army had deserted 
in their panic, and was now master of the neck of the 
peninsula on which the city stood. No more food 
could be introduced overland, and the supplies which 
came by sea were small and precarious. The next 
step was to block up the harbour. Scipio constructed 
a great wall across the mouth. So huge was the 
work that the besieged at first believed it impossible, 
but when they saw it advance rapidly, the whole army 
labouring at it night ^nd day, they began to be 
alarmed. Their own energy was not less than that of 
the besiegers. They dug a new channel from the 
harbour to the open sea, and, while this work was 
being carried on, they built also fifty ships of war. 
The besiegers knew nothing of what was being done, 
though they heard a continual sound of hammering. 
Their astonishment was very great when a fleet, of 
whose existence they had not an idea — for all the 
ships had been given up and destroyed — issued forth 
from a harbour mouth which had never been seen 
before. The Carthaginians, in great glee, manoeuvred 
in front of the Roman fleet. If they had attacked it 
promptly, they might have done it irreparable damage, 
for the ships had been left almost entirely without 



ENGAGEMENTS BETWEEN THE FLEETS. 295 

protection. As it was, they contented themselves 
with a demonstration, and then returned to the har- 
bour. It was an opportunity which never returned. It 
was fated, says the historian, that Carthage should be 
taken. Two days afterwards the two fleets fought ; 
but by this time the Romans were pi-epared, and 
the battle was drawn. The next day it was re- 
newed, and then the Carthaginians were decidedly 
worsted. 

A determined effort was now made on the harbour 
side of the city. The rams were brought to bear upon 
the walls, and brought down a considerable part of it. 
But the Carthaginians made a furious sally. They 
plunged naked into the lagoon, carrying unlighted 
torches. Some waded through the shallows ; others 
swam. Reaching the land, they lighted their torches 
and rushed fiercely on the siege works. Many were 
killed, for they had neither shields nor armour ; but 
nothing could resist their charge. The Romans gave 
way in confusion, and the siege works were burnt. 
Even Scipio, though he ordered the flying soldiers to 
be cut down, could not check the panic. The day 
ended in a great success for the besieged. 

When the winter with its cooler weather drew on, 
Scipio turned his attention to the region from which 
Carthage drew what supplies it could still obtain. 
His lieutenant Lailius, in concert with King Gulussa, 
attacked and defeated with enormous loss (though it 
is difficult to credit the figures of seventy thousand 
slain and ten thousand prisoners) an army of native 
allies. The food supply of the besieged city was 
now almost cut off, but Hasdrubal had still enough 



290 THE STORY OF CARTHAGE. 

to support his garrison. The rest of the population 
were left to starve. 

With the beginning of 146 Scipio prepared for an 
attack on the Upper City and the Harbour of the 
War-ships, or Cothon, as it was called. The Harbour 
was taken first, the resistance of the besieged being 
feeble and desultory. From the Harbour Scipio made 
his way into the neighbouring market-place. Even 
he could not check his troops in the plunder of the 
rich temple of Apollo. They are said to have stripped 
from the statue and shrine as much as a thousand 
talents of gold. 

The next thing to be done was the attack on the 
Upper City. Three streets led up to it from the 
market-place, each of six-storied houses, from which 
the garrison and many of the citizen population kept 
up an incessant fight with the besiegers. House after 
house was stormed, the defenders being gradually 
forced back by superior strength and discipline. 
Another conflict was going on meanwhile in the 
streets, the Romans struggling up each of the three 
roads till they gained the Upper City. When that 
was accomplished, Scipio ordered the streets to be set 
on fire. The scene of destruction which followed was 
terrible. A number of non-combatants, old men, 
women, and children, had hidden themselves in the 
houses that were now blazing. Some threw themselves 
on to the spears and swords of the soldiers ; some were 
burnt in their hiding places ; some flung themselves 
from the windows into the streets. Many were buried 
or half-buried under the ruins, for the pioneers were 
busy clearing a way for the troops, and did their 



SUCCESSORS OF CARTHAGE. 30I 

their treasures again, not by the fortune of war, but 
by the shameless robberies of a Roman governor. ^ 

The city was razed to the ground, and a curse 
was pronounced on any one who should rebuild it. 
Notwithstanding this, some twenty years later the 
younger Gracchus carried a proposal for founding a 
colony of six thousand citizens on the site. It was 
never carried into execution. Neither was the simi- 
lar plan which some eighty years afterwards was 
conceived by Julius Caesar. Augustus, however, 
founded a Roman Carthage, which soon became a 
prosperous city. But with this my story has nothing 
to do. This is finished with the fall of Rome's 
great Phcenician rival. 

' See the account of Verres in a classical dictionary, and in 
" The Story of Rome," p. 202. 



INDEX TO 



THE TEXT 
NOTES. 



AND THE 



Acerbas, 3, 6 

Acra, 96 

Adherbal, 157 

Adrumetum, 162 

^Egusa, 163 

i^gates Islands, battle of, 163, 
164 

.^schines, 122 

^^sculapius, temple of, 297 

.-Ethiopians, 97 

^tna, eruption of, 53 

yEtna (town), 55 

Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, 
•75 ; defeated at the Himera, 
76 ; besieged in Syracuse, 77 ; 
escapes, //'. ; lands in Africa, 
80 ; defeats the Carthaginians, 
82 ; takes Utica, 85 ; returns to 
Syracuse, ib. ; comes back to 
Africa, 86 ; imprisoned by his 
soldiers, 88 ; escapes, 89 

Agrigentum, 22, 27 ; taken by 
Himilco, 41, 67, 122 ; taken by 
the Romans, 132, 133 ; 237, 
298 

Alalia, battle of, 14 

Aletes, 117, 180 

Alexander the Great, 89 

Allobroges, 188 

Amber, 122 

Anagnia, 234 

Anio, 234 

Antiochus, 254, 266, 268 

Appian, 128, 279, 281, 297 

Arambys, 96 



Archagathus, 85-87 
Archimedes, 236 
Aristotle, 102-108 
Armenia, 269 
Artaxata, 269 
Ashtaroth, 113 
Athenaeus, 125 
Avienus, lOO 

R 

Balearic Islands, 35, 75 

Baltic Sea, 122 

Beneventum, battle of, 230 

Boarding apparatus, 134 

Bomilcar, Suffete of Carthage, his 
treachery, 82 ; attempts a revo- 
lution and is put to death, St, 

Britain, loo, 122 

Bruttii, 226, 253 

Byrsa, 5, 293 

C 

Cabala, battle of, 66 

Camarina, taken by Himilco (i), 

43, 158 
Cambyses, king of Persia, plans 

the conquest of Carthage, 18 
Campanian mercenaries, 37, 129 
Cannse, battle of, 218-224 
Capua, joins Hannibal, 225 ; be- 
sieged by the Romans, 232 ; 
surrenders, 235 ; its severe 
punishment, ib. 
Caravans, 1 18, 1 19 
Carbuncle, see Carthaginian stons 



504 INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 



Caricon, 96 

Carthaginian stone, 121 

Carthalo, 13 

Catana, 53 

Catapults, newly invented, 49 

Cato, the Elder, 273, 277, 286 

Catulus (Lutatius), 163 

Censorinus, 277-286 

Cercina, 266 

Cerne, 97, 98 

Chretes, 97 

Chronos, see Moloch 

Cineas, 89, 90 

Clastidium, 200 

Claudius (Appius), 131, 132 

Claudius (Appius), 2, 236 

Claudius (Nero) in Spain, 241 ; 
marches to join his colleague 
Livius, 249 ; defeats Hasdrul)al 
at the Metaurus, 250-252 

Claudius (Publius), 157, 158 

Clubs at Carthage, 109 

Clypea, 147, 152 

Common meals, 106 

Corinth, mother-city of Syracuse, 
70 

Corsica, 25, 122 

Cothon, 296 

Crete, 268, 269 

Crimessus, battle of, 72-74 

Crispinus, 247 

Crocodiles, 98 

Cronium, Dionysius defeated at, 
67 

Crotona, 226, 253 

Customs-duties, 116, 117 

Cyprus, 4 

Cyrene, 117 

D 

Dagon, 113, 114 

Daphnteus, 38, 39 

Deinocrates, 75 

Demeter, worship of, at Carthage, 
60 

Dexippus, 37, 41 

Dido, 3-8 

Diodoius, 117 

Dionysius (the Elder), attempts to 
relieve Gela, 43 ; makes peace 
with Carthage, 44 ; declares 



war against Carthage, 47 ; at- 
tacks Motya, zd. ; takes it by 
storm, 50 ; defeated by Himilco 
at Catana, 53 ; retreats to Syra- 
cuse, 55 ; makes successful at- 
tack on Himilco, 57 ; allows 
Himilco to escape, 59 ; declares 
war with Carthage and defeats 
Mago, 64 ; renews the war, 66 ; 
is defeated at Cronium, 67 ; his 
death, 68 

Dionysius (the Younger), tyrant of 
Syracuse, 70 

Drepanum, battle of, 157, 158, 
160, 163 

Ducarius, 209 

Duilius, 137 

E 

Ecnomus, battle of, 138-140 

Egesta, 28, 298 

Elba, 122 

Elephants, 121. See also accounts 

of battles 
Elissa, see Dido 
Entellus, 68 
Eryx, 36, 68, 159-165 
Etruscans, 14, 81, 117 
Eumenes, 269 



Fabius, appointed dictator, 212 ; 

his policy of delay, 212, 213 ; 

outwitted by Hannibal, id. ; 

his unpopularity, zl>. ; recovers 

Tarentum, 246 ; crowned at 

Rome, 260 ; dies, id. 
Fair Promontory, 14, 15 
Flaminius, defeated and killed at 

Trasumennus, 207-211 
Flaminius (ambassador to Prussia), 

270 
Fregelloe, 234 
Fulvius, 234, 245 



Cades, i8e 
Gala, 240 
Gauls, 81 



INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 305 



Gela, taken by Himilco (i), 43; 
besieged by Hamilcar, 76 

Galon, of Syracuse, defeats Hamil- 
car (2), 26, 27 

Cisco, 166-175 

Cisco, father of Hannibal (i), 29 

Cisco, father of Hasdrubal, 240 

Cisco, 218 

Corillas, 99 

Cracchus, Tib. S., 230 

(Jracchus (the Younger), 301 

Gulussa, 286, 289, 295 

H 

Halycus, river, 67, 74 

Hamilcar (i), son of Mago, con- 
quers Sardinia, 17 

Hamilcar (2) invades Sicily, 22-27 

Hamilcar (3) commands Cartha- 
ginian army against Agatho- 
cles, 75 ; is victorious at Himera, 
76 ; besieges Syracuse, 77 ; his 
death, 82 

Hamilcar (4), commander at 
Ecnomus, 138 

Hamilcar Barca (5), appointed to 
command fleet and army, 160; 
holds Hercta, id. ; holds Eryx, 
ib. ; maintains war against 
Romans, 161-164 ; makes fa- 
vourable terms of peace, 165 ; 
takes command against merce- 
naries, 171 ; breaks blockade of 
Carthage, 172; defeats merce- 
naries, ib. ; attacks camp at 
Tunes, 176 ; finishes war with 
mercenaries, 177 ; crosses into 
Spain, 178 ; his conquests and 
death, 179 

Hannibal (i) invades Sicily, 
28-34 ; invades it again, 35 ; 
dies, 38 

Hannibal (2), commander in Sicily, 
132, 133, 134, 137 

Hannibal (3), lieutenant in mer- 
cenary war, 176, 177 

Hannibal (4) swears hatred against 
Rome, 181 ; his character, 181 ; 
campaignagainst Spanish tribes, 
182; besieges Saguntum, ib.; 



takes it, 184; in winter quarters 
at New Carthage, 185 ; crosses 
the Ebro, 186 ; his dream , ib. ; 
crosses the Pyrenees, ib. ; 
crosses the Rhone, 187 ; crosses 
the Alps, 189-194 ; descends 
into Italy, 194 ; his losses, ib. ; 
attacks the Taurini, 195 ; con- 
quers the Romans at the 
Ticinus, 196-199 ; at the 
Trebia, 201-205 ! winters in 
Liguria, 206 ; in peril of his 
life, ib. ; crosses the marshes 
of the Arno, ib. ; loses an 
eye, 207 ; defeats the Romans 
at Trasumennus, 207-209 ; 
repulsed at Spoletium, 210; 
rests at Hadria, 211 ; his 
policy, ib. ; his campaign with 
Fabius, 212-216 ; wintering 
at Ceronium, 217 ; defeats 
Romans at Cannae, 222 ; refuses 
to march on Rome, 223 ; gains 
Capua, 225 ; sends Mago to 
Carthage, 227 ; neglected by 
the home government, 228 ; 
winters in Capua, ib. ; besieges 
Nola, ib. ; attempts to seize 
Tarentum, 229 ; gains Taren- 
tum, 231 ; attempts to relieve 
Capua, 232 ; marches on Rome, 
233 ; retires, 235 ; defeats Ful- 
vius at Herdonia, 245 ; hears 
of Hasdrubal's death, 252 ; his 
masterly generalship in South 
Italy, 253 ; recalled home, 259 ; 
defeated at Zama, 262 ; advises 
peace, 263 ; in power at Car- 
thage, 265 ; his reforms, ib. ; 
flies, 266 ; at the court of An- 
tiochus, 267 ; his answer to 
Antiochus, 268 ; possibly at 
Crete, 269 ; with Prusias of 
Bithynia, 269, 270 ; his death 
and character, 270, 271 

Hanno (i), Sufifete of Carthage,, 
killed in battle, 82 

Hanno (2), the navigator, 95-100 

Hanno (3), 131 

Hanno (4), 132, 133, 139, 140 

Hanno (5), 163, 164 



306 INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 



Hanno, the Great (6), 171-177 
Hanno, leader of peace party at 

Carthage (7), 183, 227 
Hanno (8), 187 
Hanno (9), defeated at Beneven- 

tum, 230 
Hanno (10), commands in Sicily, 

237 

Hanno (11), commands in Spain, 
238 

Hasdrubal (i), sonofMago, 16, 17 

Ilasdrubal (2), (son-in-law of 
Hamilcar Barca), his campaigns 
in Spain, 179, 180 ; assassi- 
nated, 180 

Hasdrubal, lieutenant of Hanni- 
bal (3), 219 

Hasdrubal, brother of Hannibal 
(4), left in command in Spain, 
186 ; his campaigns with the 
Scipios, 238-241 ; eludes Nero, 
241 ; defeated by Scipio Africa- 
nus, 243 ; crosses into Italy, 
248 ; defeated and slain at the 
Metaurus, 250 

Hasdrubal, son of Gisco (5), 240- 
289 

Hasdrubal (6), commands in the 
last siege of Carthage, 280-300 

Hebrew names, 11 

Hebrews, their relations to Tyre, 
10, II 

Helisyki, Volscians (?), 25 

Hercta, 160 

Hercules, 3, 4. See Melcarth 

Hercules, Pillars of, 96, 118 

Herodotus, 113, 118 

Hiera, 163, 164 

Hiero, 130-132, 176, 229 

Hieronymus, 229, 236 

Himera, first battle of, 26, 27 ; 
second battle of, 32 ; destroyed 
by Hannibal (i), 33; third 
battle of, 76 

Himilco (i) invades Sicily, 35-45 ; 
operates against Dionysius, 48- 
49 ; returns to Carthage, 49 ; 
again appointed to command, 
51 ; takes Massana, marches on 
Syracuse, besieges the city, re- 

- duced to extremities, 52-58 ; 



escapes to Carthage, 59 ; com- 
mits suicide, 60 
Himilco (2), discoverer, 100, loi 
Himilco (3), 154 
Himilco (4), 236 
Hippo, 168, 286 
i Hippopotamus, 98 
Horn, Southern, 99 
Horn, Western, 99 
Horace, 149, 250 
Human sacrifices; 28, 33, 38, 86, 
no 

I 

larbas, 6 

Iberians. See Spanish troops 

Iberus (Ebro), 180 

Illiturgis, 239 

Intibilis, 239 

Iron, 122 

Isere, 188 

Italian mercenaries, 25, 29, 35, 

37> 55) 65. See also Cam- 

panian mercenaries 
Ivory, 122 



Junius, 158 



Kings of Carthage, 102, 103 



Lffilius, 258, 262 

Lffilius (the Younger), 295 

Lasvinus, 237 

Leather money, 122, 123 

Leontini, 44 

Leptines (brother of Dionysius), 

53> S4> 57 ; killed at the battle 

of Cronium, 67 
Leptis, 115 
Liby-Phoenicians, 96 
Ligyes (Ligurians), 25,206 
Lilybteum, fort of, besieged by 

Dionysius, 68, 72 ; attacked by 

Pyrrhus, 91 ; besieged by 

Romans, 154-165 
Lilybaeum, promontory, 72 
Lipara, 122, 134 



INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 307 



Liris, river, 234 

Livius (colleague of Nero), 248, 

249 
Livius (in command atTarentum), 

230, 231, 246 
Livy (historian), 128, 181, 184, 

193, 222, 234, 238, 253, 259, 

264, 276 
Lixitse, 97, 98 
Lixus, river, 97 

M 

Macar, river, 171 

Macedonia, 272 

Magnesia, battle of, 268 

Mago (i), king of Carthage, 13 

Mago (2), Admiral, 53 

Mago (3), Carthaginian general, 
attacks Dionysius, 64 ; defeated 
by, id- ; invades Sicily, 65 ; is 
killed at Cabala, 66 

Mago (4), writer on agriculture, 
124 

Mago (5), brother of Hannibal, 
201 ; sent to Carthage with 
news of Cannae, 227 ; in Spain, 
240-244 ; goes to Liguria, ib. ; 
takes Minorca, 254 ; recalled 
home, 259 ; dies, ib. 

Maharbal, 210, 223 

Malchus, 12, 13 

Malgernus, 3 

Malta, 17 

Mamertines, 130, 131 

Mancinus, 286, 289 

Manilius, 282, 286 

Manlius, 138, 142 

Marcellus- appointed to command 
army after Cannae, 227 ; re- 
lieves Nola, 228 ; besieges 
Syracuse, 236 ; takes it, 237 ; 
campaigns with Hannibal, 245- 
247 ; his death, 248 

Marcius, 241 

Massilia, 122 

Masinissa defeats Syphax, 240 ; 
goes with Hasdrubal to Spain, 
ib. ; with Scipio in Africa, 257 ; 
destroys the camp of Syphax, 
257) 258 ; at variance with 



Carthage, 266 ; encroaches on 
Carthaginian dominions, 274 ; 
defeated by Hasdrubal, 275 ; 
is victorious, ib. ; triumphant 
over Carthage, 277 ; dies, 286 

Matho, 167-179 

Megara, the, 293 

Melcarth, 110-II3, 186 

Melita, 96 

Menander, 120 

Menes, 19 

Messana, 44, 130-132 

Metaurus, battle of, 249-252 

Mines, 117 

Minucius, 215, 216 

Moloch, 2^, 108, 109 

Motya, besieged by Dionysius, 
47-51 ; recovered by Himilco, 

51 

Mutines, 237 
Mylce, battle of, 137 

N 

Naravasus, 176 

Native Carthaginian troops, 66, 

72, 74, 75, 82, 85, 146, 262 
Naxos (Sicily), 21 
NemauSus (Nismes), 186 
New Carthage, 180; captured l)y 

Scipio, 242 
Nola, 228, 260 



Olympias, 89 



O 



Pachynus, 158 

Panormus (Palermo), 25, 6y, 153, 
160 

Paullus (Emilias) appointed Con- 
sul, 217 ; slain at Cannae, 222 

Pelorum, 52 

Pentarchies, 105 

Pergamus, 269 

Periplus of Hanno, 95-100 

Persephone, worship of, at Car- 
thage, 60 

Pei^Ailence, 38, 44, 56, 67, 236 

Phalaris, 298 

Phamseas (Himilco), 286 

Phidias, 120 



308 INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 



Philip, king of Macedon, 229, 

254. . 
Phoenicians, 10, 11, 18 
Phocaeans, see Alalia 
Pillars of Hercules, 96, 118 
Placentia, 199, 202 
Plutarch, 109, 218 
Politics, the. See Aristotle 
Polybius, 128, 146, 153, 222, 258, 

262, 279, 281, 297 
Prusias, 269 
Pyrrhus, 89-91 



Regulus, commands fleet at Ec- 
nomus, 138 ; lands in Africa, 
140 ; vanquishes Hasdrubal, 
143 ; occupies Tunes, 144; de- 
mands impossible terms of 
peace, ib. ; conquered by 
Xantippus and taken prisoner, 

147 ; sent as envoy to Rome, 

148 ; his counsel, 149 seq. ; his 
death, 151 

Rhodes, fleet of, 268 
Rhone, passage of, 187, 188 
Rome, early treaties with, 14-16 



Saguntum, 180 ; besieged by Han- 
nibal, 182 ; taken, 184 

Sahara, 121 

Samnites, 226 

Sardinia, invaded by Malchus, 
13 ; belongs to Carthage, 17 ; 
supplies provisions to Carthage, 
63, 65 ; lost by Carthage, 177 

Saturn, see Moloch 

Scipio, Cnseus, sent into Spain, 
189 ; defeats Hasdrubal, 238 ; 
defeats the fleet, ih. ; joined 
by Publius, ib. (see Scipio 
Publius) ; his death, 241 

Scipio (Publius), sent to the mouth 
of the Rhone, 186 ; misses Han- 
nibal, 189 ; returns to Italy, 
ib. ; marches against Hannibal, 
195 ; defeated and wounded at 
the Ticinus, 199 ; moves to the 
Trebia, ib. ; returns to Spain, 



258 ; his campaigns in that 
country, 239-240; his death, 240 
Scipio, Africanus Major, saves 
his father's life at the Ticinus, 
199 ; appointed to the com- 
mand in Spain, 242 ; takes Car- 
thage, ib. ; defeats Hasdrubal 
(Barca), 243 ; comes into Africa, 
jb. ; returns to Spain and com- 
pletes conquest, 244 ; comes 
again to Africa, 254 ; besieges 
Utica, 257 ; burns the camp of 
Syphax, 258 ; vanquishes Sy- 
phax and Hasdrubal, 259 ; de- 
feats Hannibal at Zama, 261, 
262 ; makes peace with Car- 
thage, 263 
Scipio, Africanus Minor, his de- 
scent, 275 ; arbitrates between 
Massinissa and Carthage, 276 ; 
distinguishes himself in the 
siege, 286 ; administers the 
effects of Masinissa, ib. ; ap- 
pointed to the command at 
Carthage, 289 ; rescues Man- 
cinus, 290 ; restores order to 
the camp, ib. ; storms the Me- 
gara, 293 ; institutes a blockade, 
294 ; attacks the Upper City 
and captures it, 297 ; his re- 
flections, 298; his disposal of 
the spoil, ib. 

Scipio, Nasica, 273 

Seleucus, 267 

Selinus, 26, 27 ; at war with 
Egesta, 28 ; taken by Han- 
nibal (I), 48, 67, 68 

Sempronius, 200 ; defeated at 
Trebia, 201-205 

Senate of Carthage, 104, 105 

Servilius, 21 1, 213 

Ships built by Rome, 134, 162 

Shophetim, 103 

Sikel tribes, 44, 47, 59, 65 

Smuggling, 117 

Soloeis, 96 

Sophonisba, 244 

Spanish troops of Carthage, 25, 
29. 33, 35, 59, 185, 186, 202, 
205, 219 

Spendius, 167-179 



INDEX TO THE TEXT AND THE NOTES. 309 



Spoletium, 210 

Suffetes, 103 

Syphax, 239, 243, 257-259 

Syracuse, ruled by Gelon, 26 ; by 

Dionysius, 42 e( seq. ; besieged 

by Himilco, 53-58 
Syrds, 115 



Tanit, 113, 114 

Tarentum, 229, 230, 246 

Taurini, 195 

Tauromenium, 64 

Terence, 120 

Tiienes, 119 

Thermopylae, 267 

Theron, 26, 38 

I'hymiaterium, 96 

Ticinus, battle of, 196 

Tifata, Mount, 233 

Timoleon, sails to Syracuse, "Jl.; 
declares war against Carthage, 
ib. ; defeats Carthaginians at 
tlie Crimessus, 72-74 ; his death, 
75 



Trasumennus, battle of, 207-21 1 

Tribute, 115, 1 16 

Triton, 113 

Troglodytos, 97 

Tunes (Tunis), 12, 60, 144, 168, 

172, 176 
Tusculum, 234 
Tyre, 3, 10, 11, 266 

U 

Utica, 5, 12, 168, 176, 257, 277, 
290 

V 

Varro, 217, 221, 222, 226 
Venus. See Ashtaroth 
Venusia, 247 

Virgil, his legend of Dido, 7-9, 
121 

X 
Xantippus, 145, 146 



Zama, battle of, 260-262 



The Story of the Nations. 



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THE STORY OF EARLY EGYPT. Prof. George Rawlinson. 
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